London - Breaking into PE coming from an EB

Hi,

I'm an incoming 1st year analyst at an EB in London and I would really like to go the buyside in the future. I really like the culture at my EB however Im a bit concerned about PE recruiting as Ive heard that PE firms, especially MFPEs, mostly take GS/MS/JPM guys. Would appreciate if you could share your experiences on PE recruiting 

• As an EB analyst, do you even get invited to interview for MFPEs? Or do recruiters only choose GS/JPM/MS guys? Do MFPEs recruiters prefer any particular EB?

• How should I address PE recruiting? Do recruiters contact you first?

• Would you say that the best approach is to lateral to a top BB (GS/MS/JPM) regardless of the team, or is it better to be at the TMT/Healthcare team of an EB rather than say the FIG/Financing team of a top BB

Thanks a lot

 
Most Helpful

1. Yes obviously at an EB you get invited to interview for MFPEs. Surely you have done some due diligence on LinkedIn (At the very least) to see the trajectory of past analysts/associates that have left to large funds. If you can't find any for at least one of the big names etc bx/cvc/kkr/apo/advent then it's likely you are not at a true 'EB' or perhaps you're at one of the underperforming few and this leads to my next point.

2. Your question depends hugely on your EB. If you're at a laz/roth/evr/pjt you will be getting the exact same traction as your bofa/citi colleagues. I can say this from experience as I work for one of the mentioned EB's and have flatmates from bofa/citi and one of the other eb's mentioned. If at cvp you probably would get the same traction but I can't speak from experience as with the few people that I know there, not many are willing to pay back their hefty sign-on bonus. PWP I am also not too familiar with but their exits seem decent too. The only EBs I would say where you would struggle a bit more with MFPE recruiting are the ones who are still weak in Europe or fell off of their prime etc Moelis (m&a)/Greenhill and even still there are a few exits to MF every now and again from said firms.

3. If you are at one of the top EBs mentioned before then the differential in exits between gs/ms/jp isn't significant enough to justify a lateral in my opinion. Most people on this forum aren't the wisest and dont understand the simple principle of proportion. the top 3 bbs have roughly 2-3x the analyst classes of your typical EB yet I wouldn't say they have 2-3x the exits of most eb's. The probability difference between landing interviews is minimal.

4. In regards to preferences for particular EB's, I would say recruiters recently have been allured to the brand names of evr/pjt and their analysts have exited better than laz/roths in recent recruiting cycles but I wouldn't say there's a particular preference for a single one. The only slight preference is some (Very few) recruiters preferring rx over m&a exp.

TLDR: If optimising for pe exits, GS/MS/JP is ideal but arguably may not be worth a lateral if you're entering a top 4-5 EB

 

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