LMM PE compensation, recruiting and port co. work

What can one expect when transitioning to a LMM fund in terms of hands on port co work, hours, current valuation environment, comp and the recruiting length and process?

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This might not be the answer you're hoping for, but you can expect that the variation among firms in the lower middle market is going to be pretty high across all the attributes you mentioned.

Some LMM PE firms are very hands-on with portcos; some are spread so thin across their investments that they basically show up to board meetings and try to remember everyone's name. Hours depend a lot on the senior partners - if they made their bones in a sweaty culture and they learned how to leverage that system to their advantage, then get ready to sweat; if they didn't like that culture or never experienced it in the first place, then you could be walking into a lifestyle firm. Comp is generally below street, but there are outliers. Recruiting length and process is a total wild card.

I won't touch valuation environment. It depends so much on sector, sourcing model, and investment strategy that any general answer you get won't be very helpful.

"Son, life is hard. But it's harder if you're stupid." - my dad
 

1st yr Associate at a LMM fund ($350mm fund, AUM $1B) in a tier-2 city (think Miami / Austin).

Base: $100 Bonus: $80k target (though they exceeded this by 20% pro rata) Co-invest opps (w/o fees) on a per investment basis.

Agree with the other comments above re: variability in the other factors you mentioned. I'd say an average week is 8:30am - 8 or 9pm, but that usually puts me as the last one in the office. Split between new investments, portco work, firmwide projects and admin BS is about 60%, 20%, 10%, 10% respectively.

Hope this helps.

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