MF PE is easier than LMM PE - Hot Take
1: Easier data – you get a clean dataroom, GAAP accounting, and a nicely formatted model from Goldman, rather than some lower middle market company with unorganized data, barely a finance team, and some incompetent LMM bank throwing random files at you
2: Less support – at a MF there is more resources, more people, more outsourced support (consultants, experts, etc) that you simply do not get for smaller businesses. Yes the sheer volume of the data might be larger but it is way easier to navigate and work through with these support systems and teams. You probably have seniors who can advise you and know what they are doing on your team as well lol.
3: Chaotic process – LMM deals could not be less organized if they tried. It is all over the place. Sourcing deals is very difficult, companies don’t just “go up for sale” in a clean process lead by Evercore. No, you are dealing with a 2-person investment bank called Titan Advisors from Nebraska who don’t even have a website and the whole process being a fraud is a coin-flip.
I’m convinced the actual thought, analysis, and process work in smaller deals is significantly more difficult than in much larger, more established deals.
I’ve done both and I agree. Only thing to flag on LMM is that you as the PE firm have more leverage to call the shots (if you’re in a proprietary or thinly banked process) so things move more at your pace vs. based on process dynamics. Culture is also generally worse at bigger funds but that’s very individual
Congrats on LMM
Worked at both. MF was genuinely easier work.
Put some respect on Titan Advisors
The biggest thing to me for MF PE is - are the company’s or fund’s HBS MBAs that much better than one another. LMM has so much more opportunity for improvement. You find a well run company at a MF and maybe you can buy, great. The valuations are higher, and you lose a lot in opportunities for actually making the company better. I had 2 MF opportunities out of banking and went to a tiny, no name bank in a tier 3 market to get closer to earlier stage companies with a view towards founding a company, which I eventually did. I left after running it for a decade+ and am now in PE but focused on smaller businesses.
Many thanks for your insights! May I ask that for early stage companies, are they mostly covered by LMM/MM banks? After fouding a company, what makes your career at LMM PE instead of VC?
Some, yes, but most of our targets are research driven in areas of interest so we do a lot of outbound as well. We invest in software enabled services companies that have traction but haven't broken out on their own. It's proven to be pretty lucrative for us and our model.
VC is so political from my perspective and their goals tend to be somewhat ambiguous. I had 6 VCs as investors at my former company, including 3 well known funds, and it was miserable at times. They said they wanted to be passive, but when they are striving for a next fund they call you 3x per day when you are the best company in the portfolio, and they desperately want a exit. It's counter-productive as I only wanted to focus on the business vs some VC's next fund and timing of exit/hearing them whine..dude, you fire founders from their own companies regularly...piss off. It became a nightmare headache as it pertained to one board member who led our Series A - one bad board member can ruin you and also turn other board members against you, some of these jerks don't care about anything beyond themselves or their fund, no matter how short sighted that is. I will never put myself in that position again.
I'd rather be in a position to find a gem in the rough and then help polish it. The hardest parts are then already done, but many times the team could use some coaching. That is a lot more fun.
I also value product/market fit and would rather help a company figure out how to scale that vs figure it out (already having done that in my own company before) so very early stage isn't an interest.
P.S. My company was profitable, worth a few hundred million and growing at >100% per year when i started having the board conflict. An exit would return his entire fund, but he prioritized the fund over the company. I can't stand for that. As an investor I will never do that, particularly for a great company that was thriving but not exiting fast enough.
MF PE intensity is much higher though. You will do much more detailed analysis and they are usually even leaner than MM / LMM firms.
My benefit is I’m at a “LMM-sized” fund doing small deals, but most of them aren’t banked and are pretty simple. Venture secondaries.
Venture secondaries is increasingly a great space. A lot of early stage VC’s need liquidity so opportunity to get into some big names at favorable prices.
LP VC secondaries or secondary directs? There’s a big difference. Secondary directs is a tough business, IMO
Curious why you think secondary directs is a tough business? Quite a few funds popping up targeting late stage venture companies last ~5 yrs.
I would argue the bar is much higher at a MF and you're inundated with deal flow so your life sucks. Coupled with the fact there is little upwards mobility really makes the experience worse overall. I would trade a better WLB for shittier operations (both internally and within prospective investments) every day of the week. There's also more alpha to be captured in the LMM vs. large banked deals.
Comparing the day to day of an associate at a MF and a LMM is a fools errand. You should be choosing one or the other based on long-term careers ops (ie. do you want to training from a MF then go somewhere else with a strong resume, or do you want to invest heavily in a smaller firm and grow alongside them with more room for internal promotion).
don't you know that short-termism rules in this forum
Working at RE MF and can confirm that our stuff is easier than LMM RE shops.
Can we not do this anymore?
holy shit can you fuck off already
shh when the Michael Burry of PE speaks we listen
Why do you even post here anymore ?
Look at developed world population pyramids (ex US) and you'll understand the point I'm trying to make. There will be almost half the amount of global savings in the coming decades which means half the amount of available capital for the financial services industry which means higher interest rates which means far lower growth etc.
Clearly its not “pussy galore” considering how much you are on this forum
Clearly it's a James Bond character
It’s true and false, but mostly false.
Your analysis seems overall correct:
1) MF is easier in that you have MBB do the market work, other 3P’s do the other work, bankers do a lot of work, and there is more data and company materials there for you to leverage in producing materials
However,
2) MF is harder, because you are expected to do way more material prep, analysis, complex math, etc for each thing you’re doing and you are expected to do many many things at once
3) MF is harder because the culture is harder. It’s full of hardos whose highest aspiration ever is to have the email signature they have now and they’ll do anything to keep and enhance it, there are true hyperreal caricatures in the MF world. As a result you work truly 100 hours a week if you’re the good kid on the golden path because the only way for these people to differentiate themselves in the eyes of a few disconnected monarchs in the IC is to do constant performance displays of their intelligence, shrewdness, and work ethic. The organization is functionally a political body so you are constantly in an environment of vitriol, even if it isn’t always directed at you.
In conclusion:
4) net of all the above, I think MF is harder on the mind body and spirit than LLM.
What complex math? Curious as I am in IB and shit at math
Not complex math it’s all just arithmetic but it can be conceptually complex until you “get it” which happens for the good people around like ASO1.5/ASO2. There are rockstars who get it from like PE Analyst2 but I wasn’t that guy. It takes the right combo of independent learning, being given rope to lead and try and fail, and mentorship
No... just... no. Not a hot take, just a bad one.
Randomly poll any MF ASO vs any LMM ASO and 99/100 times the MF person's work is harder, busier, and a bigger drain on their personal life/wellbeing. It's not even close, that's why they make 2-3x+ more at every stage.
Accurate except for comp — hard disagree that MF are making “2-3x more” unless it’s a terrible LMM. That would imply that a $300k MF associate position translates to $100-150k in LMM, which doesn’t seem accurate. Comp discount is more like 30% MF to LMM
There is a WIDE swath of LMM bucket shops that will pay ASOs ~$100k base and MF ASOs are not only making $300k, closer to $350-400k depending on the shop with maybe a couple of exceptions (often due to COL). When you get to mid-level at those same LMM shops they're barely getting to $300k+, I've personally been approached by recruiters for lateral Sr. ASO/VP roles only paying $270-300k with a sliver of carry vs at the MFs they're all making $500k-600k+ and have a $1m-2m DAW.
You know nothing - compensation because more difficult? Come back to this thread when you see fund economics and how budgeting works on AUM & fund fees.
Is Titan Advisors hiring
This is a dumb comparison.
Pediatrics is harder than cardiology because as a pediatrician your patients are tiny and squirming constantly while you examine their chicken pox while on cardiology your bypass patient is under anesthesia while you’re doing surgery.
They’re very different investment strategies. There are things that make LMM uniquely difficult and interesting and there are things that make MF uniquely difficult and interesting.
This is the most accurate comment by far... Agree 100%
Where would you start your career if your were a graduate today? Many thanks!
At a MF, obviously.
One of the most important things is to, in your immediate first 5-7 years, get the absolute best branding you can.
That’s what MF gets you.
You want to have the branding so that when people see your profile, it’s an immediate ‘this guy fucks’ vs. someone having to do the work to figure it out.
That’s all branding is. So you want to make it as easy as possible for people to give you a chance and put you in a position to succeed/be lucky.
You can move from MF -> LMM with ease, but not the other way around.
Idk sport at some point this is entirely a pp measuring contest — in actuality, either type of shop will make you more money than you know what to with, especially if you can last for a few years, and both will pay literal 24 year olds 300k plus or minus 50k.
Both types of jobs can teach you a ton and still have dumb shit to deal with (as others have illustrated more specifically) , and can be both great and terrible.
But ya congrats on LMM
Some people in the comments fail to understand that this post is about the investor role in terms of finding the good opportunity not hours spend or whatnot.
In simpler terms LMM is about the business model/management while MF is more about the financials
Lots of this will be resurfacing ideas expressed by previous posters. SM HF is closer to MF PE than LMM PE is to MF PE. The work consitutes such different styles of investing - you'd almost feel it's a different asset class
LMM PE feels a bit like private equity in the 1980-2000s: There is tremendous value-creation opportunity for improving relatively unsophicated operations (ex: Mom & Pops) that often will lack CRM or ERP software, haven't implemented "best-practice" business standards like automatic contract renewals or annual price increases, lack scale to negoitate better supplier rates etc. Moreover, lots of the diligence work in LMM PE is to simply figure out proper accounting and business representations. Often a LMM PE target will have a founder / CEO who doesn't take cash compensation (easy EBITDA add-back) or utilizes very loose definition on "recurring" revenue which requires heavily scruitinzing contract lanuage. Unlike MF PE, it is a much higher threshold for LMM PE to spin up lawyers / accountants for running at deal (so deal team does more of this in initial stages) given smaller equity check & management fees leads to elevated cost senstivity around transaction expenses
For MF: All of the low-hanging fruit has typically been addressed at this point of business maturity (table stakes for >$1B TEV company). All MF PEs will run the same diligence processes on sell-side assets, there will always be a banked / competitive auction, all firms deploy $10M+ DD budgets if deal progresses to final stages that utilize consultant market studies, tech consultants, QOE analysis
Put differently, there really isn't a stone unturned in MF PE that the rest of the market doesn't see. Consequently, being a good MF PE investor relies on more qualitative assetment how to judge data inputs throughout a DD process (ex: H&F primary work came back negative on business quality, Permira excited to do M&A, TB is underwriting higher year terminal exit margin)
MF PE investor requires much more creativity as an investment thesis isn't simply "install CRM" to make money. Everyone will know the name coming to market (like HF analyst covering Google stock) and being good investor really comes down to qualitative judgement calls.
Inversely, critics of large-scale buyout can say returns are falling because of this dynamic. Can argue this segement of industry is becoming much more commoditized, vs. LLM PE providing actual value-added services...
I am not discounting the qualitative judgement needed in LMM PE - but source of return attribute spikes much higher for them knocking out simple business improvement (and having proprietary sourced deals) vs. MF PE seeing the same chessboard as everyone else and need to make harder calls about "why us" for being able to pay the most to purchase asset
MANY THANKS for your insights! May I ask that how would you rank the career of MFPE, LMMPE, Secondaries, PC, special sits/hybrid capital, and family office PE if you had to make the choice today?
Best comment in the thread imo
Agree with the sentiment.
There is definitely a quality difference in quality of advisors, but everything in Europe above like £1m/€1m EBITDA is banked.
Those talking about 'proprietary' deals may not realise how efficient the market is and how much capital there is chasing the same assets - even at the 'bottom' of the spectrum.
May be different in the US.
Can you elaborate on what you see as some examples of "creativity" in the investment thesis in MF? I come from LMM/MM world so I'm just taking a stab here:
1. Vertical integration impacts on raw material cost synergies in manufacturers
2. potential to form GPOs with peers in the network (similar to #1)
3. validated product pipeline (evidence of early successes and monetization)
4. M&A pipeline
5. Underdeveloped sales pipeline and function
6. Real but complex geographic expansion opportunities
Please let me know if I'm full of s#it
thanks!
This was the biggest shocker to me on joining a team of exclusively MF/UMM folks. My experience and sheer pain in LMM was light-years worse than my peers up and down the org chart. Even just the modeling exposure I got in full ops-basis strategic planning and model refinement, as a simple associate, beats my peers in the VP/Principal real upstream.
Meanwhile their bank accounts are 2-3x mine. smfh.
Wait so did you move up market?
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