Life in Middle Market Private Equity
What is your life like at a firm with a fund size in the $5-$10B range. How are the hours and pay. Are you able to balance relationships, health, and work? I'm sure it is firm dependent but curious to know.
I don’t really think $5-$10B fund size is your standard MM PE fund mate
He's taking the piss.
Fund size of $5-10bn is big fund that is going to pay well at the expense of no WLB as a junior. Now, those platforms might have multipe strategies where you can find something a little less intense (secondaries, credit, etc) but then you aren't in PE..
If you want to know about my life as a Sr. Associate at a more tradtional MM fund. it about 60 hours a week on average (830-530 in office M-Th + 2-3 hours per night), flexing to 90 in deal sprints. Weekend work is primarily getting ahead of the work week but there is something to do every weekend.
how often are you in deal sprint mode during the year?
What are similar firms to the one you work at in terms of size, culture, etc.
$5B fund
$325k ASO1/ $350k ASO2 / $375k Sr. Assoc.
Fucking brutal, virtually no WLB. Same hours as banking but stress is 10x higher. 0/10 would recommend.
Wya so we can avoid
Name and shame.
Same exact answer at a fund in the $5-$10B range. Comp for me is ~10k higher than the numbers quoted above. At a “good culture” fund as well but that just means people say thank you when you work all night, it’s complete BS.
Hours are brutal, work 7 days a week constantly. Similar hours to banking but pressure is so much higher.
Good week is probably 9-midnight M-Th, 9-9 Friday, 10 hours of work total over the weekend = 80ish hours. Can’t remember the last time I logged off before 11 or midnight more than 1-2 nights in a row, there are just never relaxed periods anymore.
Bad week on a deal sprint is going to be 110+, working 9-2am or later 7 days a week.
At a MM fund portfolio company work is basically constant, when you’re on a deal sprint you have to put it on hold and then in the 2 week break after a deal dies you end up just getting crushed trying to catch up. And then by that point your stupid VP wants to “do some quick efficient work” on the 25 different CIMs you get a week and next thing you know you’re building models and starting IC packs for things that an MD is going to laugh at when you pitch to them.
Issue with these larger MMs is they have historically been successful so the partner class has made a fortune, but across the board returns are getting worse so younger partners and Principals / VPs are all constantly spinning in circles trying to get a promotion, which is infinitely harder in a bloated organization that is no longer able to grow and promote people the way it used to. Look at any team page on a $5-$10B MM website and do the promotion math - typically these funds have a ton of VPs with no chance at principal, a bunch of principals with no chance at partner, and a bunch of junior partners who are going to be fighting over economics from a small handful of senior leaders / founders who refuse to retire. Every single person needs to try to prove they are the one worth promoting, which all trickles down to creating stupid work assignments for an understaffed group of associates.
I am leaving as soon as my 2 years end for some corporate job, hours make having a social life nearly impossible and don’t see things getting much better at VP level.
At a $5-10B fund as well and would echo EVERYTHING from the comment above. Well said and saying my goodbyes to the industry as well.
This is not surprising. To me it is always satirical that we "smart" folks who are in the business of analyzing businesses, looking for moats, competitive advantages and what not do not realize that the business of PE itself is inherently cooked.
Just a few points why it is bad particularly for employees:
The business-model was nice when there was limited competition and lower rates, but under the current environment any competent observer of markets would only come to the conclusion that working in PE has to be absolute hell. There is no way around it. It is a cooked industry that will only slightly get better once consolidation starts and players realize that they will need to wind down.
Why is the pressure higher? I hear you but curious on specifics
Yeah - they're all so f*cking needy.
Constant bolt-ons, refi's, equity issues, management scheme changes, x y z committee. It just eats up time.
Am at a MM fund with great culture and good people relative to what I often read on here and even I can’t imagine doing this past ASO.
Work seemingly never stops. Analysis, model building, and market calls for deals I know will get killed. If we do chase something attractive, someone blows us out on value. The golden chip of carry in our most recent fund seems nice in theory but won’t see for another 10 years and have seen so many people get pushed out at Sr ASO or VP that the likelihood of ever seeing any of it seems impossibly low.
I value the experience I’ve gotten but there’s got to be more to life than this.
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