Life advice: Lateral BB vs. Small PE Fund
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Just looking at your ultimate goal of (U)MM PE in London, option 2 defenitly would make most sense. UK UMM will not hire guys from small PEs, especially not outside France/Germany.
I would encourage you to do some DD yourself: check websites of the UMM you would find interesting and click on 'team' to see where the team members come from.
Option 2.
I would consider option 1 if the firm is active in doing deals. Some LMM firms may do 1-2 buyouts a year, while others may only do one every two years or so. If they're active, having closed buyout deal experience you can speak to will help a lot when trying to lateral to a MM PE firm–especially since you already have a solid 3 years in banking. On the other hand, if the firm does not seem very active, it may be better to take the brand name with option 2 and aim for a different PE firm down the line. Congrats on the offers and options.
I don't know how the european market is different, but I can comment on the US one.
If the goal is MM/UMM PE then you should absolutely go back and do banking at a BB for another year or so and just immediately start recruiting for PE. I'd make sure the group you're going into has a good track record of sending people into PE, but as long as it's a good group and that's the case, then you'll have the easiest time moving into a bigger shop from there.
The LMM offer isn't a bad one, and arguably it's a better path if you want to be in PE long term, but it will be challenging to laterla to a larger fund. The best bet is that you'll grow with the fund and end up in a partner track position much sooner than you would at a larger fund, where you'll almost certaintly get 2 and outed.
Also, if you've been at a T2/EB already, why haven't you been able to recruit for PE successfully? It would be different if you were coming from a no-name bank, but as long as the name is decent, you should hopefully be having more luck than a lone LMM offer. Might be worth evaluating if the name of the shop is the only thing that's holding you back.
Agreed but the only thing I'd doubt here for US market would be that he's a third year already. Unless he took a step back to a 2nd year analyst at the bulge, it would be difficult to get looks from most MM / UMM funds.
But agreed in the sense that it is better to have a stronger jump-off for recruiting rather than going to a tiny fund and trying to recruit up in size as that is pretty rare/never really done.
That's a fair point, he's getting a little long in the tooth on banking by US standards.
In Europe as long as you did you analysts years, you can exit after 1-4 or 5 years without a problem. You may take a pay-cut though.
Can only comment on Germany: PE recruiting is hard if you are not at a BB (or RS/ LAZ); you hardly see people from T2 Banks or satellite offices of EBs move to good funds. Even lower BBs like Barclays and UBS do not send people to PEs...
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