KPS in 2026
Anyone have insights into what it is like to work at KPS (culture / hours)? Is there a path to promotion and what is the case for KPS over other similar sized funds?
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Heard it is very sweaty
bump
bump
Had a friend who recruited there heavily. From my understanding it is a great fund, they work hard but they have the returns to justify it. They do direct promote so no need for b-school if you are into that. Definetly more of a PE career play. Not the place you should target if you are trying to go work for a HF the line.
Do you know if HF exits would be good from KPS?
I did do some browsing on LinkedIn and have not found much, but I take it that the brand name and skill set would take you far?
Have a friend there; sweaty af, but that's par for the course given the type of investing. Generally the more value-nvesting oriented the firm is, the more sweaty it is. KPS flies under the radar for sweatiness because it has fewer comparative a-holes to an Apo or HIG type firm and also because people aren't particularly horrible (at least for PE). One more interesting thing to note is the union aspect. KPS loves and seeks out working with unions, so would really think about that's something you want to do. It's intrinscly more involved than working with a usual another value-oriented PE firm that lays everyone off and engages in financial engineering.
How’s the culture?
WLB is non-exsistent. Expected to be in office with a suit on everyday type culture, but people aren't particularly bad (at least relative to PE standards). Great firm, elite returns, would not go here if trying to optimize for culture / WLB. Generally wouldn't do value/distressed investing if you care a lot about either of those things.
Very sharp group of investors but heard it's sweaty. Known to work on hairy situations and specialize in manufacturing and do it well. KPS charges 3 and 30 (I think) but continues to raise well which says something about their strategy. Solid seat to build your career at, but WLB is non existent. I do not work here
What I've heard is that the 30 part of that is definitely true, not sure on the mgmt fee. It's a simple supply and demand thing; KPS has tons of LPs interested due to performance but they don't want to scale their fund size for the flagship too rapidly. General idea of the KPS junior experience: prepare to have no life but KPS with a suit on all day in exchange for learning from some of the best investors on the planet. Their work with unions is heavily differentiated and not something many other firms even try doing because of complexity.
KPS case study was probably the hardest one I've ever done in my career. I didn't make the cut, but seemed like a fantastic firm.
Jw, referring to take home or on-cycle in-person type stuff?
This was 5+ years ago so it may have changed. It was one I presented at a super day.
I formerly interviewed for a VP role at KPS and didn't find their modeling test as hard as some others (KKR, Apollo, Pegasus back when they were a thing). There was one awkwardly worded part about the step-up / intangibles but it was otherwise a pretty standard 3-statement LBO exercise, just tight on timing. There were some rumors about it including a receivables / inventory debt tranche but that wasn't really the case.
Now there was one "case study" as part of an interview which was essentially reading a 5-page CIM and then chatting through your diligence questions with a team member live. Given the complexity that comes with mfg/distrib businesses that they love, this got very in-depth and was honestly kind of exhausting becasue of how hard the interviewer makes you think. Really nice guy tbh, and I felt like I learned a lot through the exercise. Ended up advancing past both steps before ultimately not landing it, but the guys were sociable and very sharp.
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Curious if anyone else have add’l thoughts on the firm
Bump; have heard that this firm is intense and thorough, and that you'll need to be prepared going into meetings. Seeing Mike Psaros on the news and podcasts, the man seems like a great boss to have under whom you'll learn a lot, and comes across as tough but fair. Not sure how that translates into the ASSO experience, but I do imagine you'll get grinded and seems like WLB improves as you approach senior level ranks.
Looks like they are established enough as a platform to have multiple successful spinouts like Turnspire and Monomoy among others.
One of their associates was grinded so hard that they ended up in the hospital and had to quit after just 1 month on the job last year…
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