Leave buyside secondaries for sellside?
Have about 10 years work experience, 6 of which are in PE secondaries for lower tier LMM shops as a principal. Closed around 30 deals in my career. Looking to make a shift to a shop where I can get paid more money but just not seeing many opportunities on the buyside (despite everyone saying there is a war for talent). Recruiters are hitting me up constantly to see if I want a senior role on the sellside but candidly I don't really know how to be a broker, I'm an investor.
Curious if anyone has any thoughts. Now that I am building a family I need to be getting my base comp up to a respectable level.
whats your base and all in at your buyside shop vs the IBs that youre getting offers from?
Base right now is very low...USD 125k but my boss said he will raise it to 175k in the next few months. All-in (ex carry) is around 200. Offers I am getting have a base around 275-350k and bonus of 50-100%.
This is insanely low comp for someone with your level of experience. 125k base? I think almost any buy side firm will pay more
Yep. Agreed. Once again, low end shops without much institutional capital.
You will definitely work more on the sell-side (wrt hours) but the stress is much different. Once you wrap up a deal that's done and dusted and you move on to the next thing. It's nothing like the stress of owning a shitty investment in your fund. OTOH, it's not incredibly intellectually stimulating checking the analyst's logo page for the 10th time. Is there something particular you are wondering about? I've noticed there's still a lot of desire for junior secondaries talent on the buy-side but the senior level movement that I have seen is more sell-side focused.
I guess at the director/principal level at a shop like Evercore or Lazard that does GP led deals what would you really do? Just approach GPs and try and see if they want to restructure their fund or something? Or is it more about to MDs and Partners to generate deals and win mandates?
Your "coverage" area is sponsors so you'd develop relationships with PE firms and educate them about the space, the various types of deals they could do, the benefits etc. Then at that level you'd be point person for the GP-led deal. MD's and Partners probably have the relationships and win the deal and then would be more hands off on the execution. VP is pretty pure execution but director/principal level is the tweener role where you're starting to bring in business yourself. As I'm sure you're aware, GP-led deals look pretty similar to a sell-side M&A process but with an LP election process at the end. You'd be in charge of DD for the asset(s), creating the CIM, speaking with buyers alongside the MD and so forth. The area is so hot right now that there's a lot of inbounds to the Evercore and Lazard's of the world. Either the secondaries group has the relationship or someone else at the bank does (a FIG banker who sold one of their assets for example). Then the secondaries team gets looped in for the pitch and go from there.
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