Kelso 2024
Any updated information on Kelso NYC including culture, comp, work and their 2025 associate process? Thanks.
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Bump
Who?
Fratty culture, seem to grind, performance has been mixed, thought they were nice guys from my limited interactions with them
Could you elaborate on their performance?
From Pitchbook:
2023 Vintage (1Q, hard to put much stock in this but off to a decent start perhaps), 2018 (1Q), 2015 (3Q), 2007 (3Q), 2004 (3Q).
Went from $5B+ for 2007 vintage (especially large back then) to $2.6B in 2015. Grown last two funds (latter moreso than one before that) so maybe there’s a little momentum.
As others have touched on, it's a mid-market firm that has seen better days. To tack on to another poster's post about their $5bn+ fund raised around the GFC, these guys thought it was a good idea to buy 3 private jets right after closing this fund...which no LP wants to see. LPs obviously want to see a GP invest into building out its own platform, team and other capabilities, not splurging on jets. Performance still hasn't reset and is still struggling in the 3rd quartile range.
It's now essentially morphed into an employee family office. They boast on their website that their founder pioneered the ESOP concept but...what does this mean really? Their last fund closed end of last year and was in market for 2+ years. Kelso's employees forked over $400m on a $3.25b fund target. That's 12%. Not the 2%, 3% tops GP commitment that you see in other funds. To me this means they either couldn't hit their fund target without padding the commitments themselves or that they're REALLY confident in their investment capabilities. Either is fine.
You can get your training there as a junior investment professional but I wouldn't consider this firm for anything beyond that.
Any update on their 2025 process?
What is their case study and modeling test like for Associates?
When is your first round?
Bumping
Bumping--is the only red flag here some private jets and using employees to bootstrap a fundraise? Their 2018 flagship appears to have returned well and their latest has good marks at least
Bump
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