Megafund seats per year?
How many new first-year associates start in corporate PE at megafunds each year in the US? Usual suspects like BX/APO but including large-cap euro funds like Apax/Permira, sector focused like Silver Lake/Vista, and just focused on PE like H&F/CD&R.
On average 10-15 per fund
~150 / yr.
Warburg + CDR have 20+ each
Warburg does not have 20+, at least half of future associates will have started as analysts
They’re still new 1st year associates…
Heard Warburg only hired mid single digits this cycle given the analyst class
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Lmao so Carlyle
Any sense of how many associates CG takes in buyout PE?
Bump
Depends on the fund but also on the year. Historically, Cdr and Tpg have the most spots at ~20. Others are a lot smaller on average (BX hired low single digits on cycle this year, but that's bc they have analyst program). KKR has a class size of 15 / year. SLP is low teens, same with HF (though both skew 60/40 or 70/30 west coast). WP mid teens, Advent / Permira low teens, CVC prob high single digit. Not sure about Carlyle but APO have heard low teens.
Would estimate at ~130/140 or so in the US / year. Prob 40% NYC, 40% SF, 20% Boston / everywhere else.
del
Ya why is there so little correlation between fund size and associates hired?
I don’t know how many SLP generally hires but low teens is more than I expected. At their happy hour a month ago there were probably 30 prospects there in total.
A lot of top groups are too busy to leave from to go to a happy hour. And a majority of top candidates signed offers in August.
It’s wild how much class sized have run up over the last ten years or so. It wasn’t too long ago that Apollo took 2-3 per year and none of the megafunds took more than ~5-10.
I wonder if the numbers will come down if fundraising stagnates and if some funds raise smaller funds
I'd think number might be higher and closer to 250+ depending on definition of MF PE as $10bn+ funds.
Going through list, of TPG, Carlyle, BX, Apollo, Warburg, KKR, Bain Cap, H&F, Advent, CD&R, Apax, CVC, Permira, EQT, Thoma Bravo, Vista, Silverlake that is 17 firms right there.
You can likely add Veritas, Clearlake, Francisco Partners, Leonard Green, Insight, and debatably add Platinum, New Mountain Capital, maybe Genstar which all have 10bn+ vehicles which are an additional 8 funds.
This excludes some firms who operate akin to MFs or do those types of dals (BC Partners, Evergreen Coast, Stonepeak (orienting towards corporate PE these days), Golden Gate Capital, Brookfield corporate PE, BDT which are an additional 6 or so.
Summary is that there are alot of funds out there with a decent amount of head count.
This seems spot on. Those first 17 funds that fall under the classic definition of megafund probably take a combined ~50 new associates every year in their NY offices right now. One thing to note is that the number may go down for associates as analyst pipelines get stronger. Can already see this at Blackstone, Warburg etc
Can you explain what you mean by the "firms who operate akin to MFs or do those types of deals"? Do you just mean they're not quite viewed as traditional MFs but are big enough to start being considered in the conversation? Or is it more a comment on the type of experienced you get at these places being somehow different than the usual suspects you listed before?
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