Middle East Buyside - Worth it?

As SWFs in the region seem to have...

1) increasingly built out direct teams over the last decade and become more sophisticated vs tag-along

2) have a lot of firepower to do deals and are doing lots of deals in Europe/North America vs their home countries

Is going to SWF in the middle east a "career killer" and does it make it hard to go back to decent MM/UMM funds in London/NYC etc. and why?

What are people's views on whether its worth taking an opportunity there vs traditional PE after a couple years in banking

Thx 

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

I know this is stating the obvious, but nothing like a job move is a "career killer" but neither is it as straightforward as simply taking the traditional route.

The factors to focus on (aside from salary, personal life, etc.) should be (1) your ability to articulate why you moved (when you come to those MM / UMM interviews), (2) the size and brand of the SWF, (3) the type of investment style (e.g. co-investment versus direct primary, etc.), (d) the type of work you'll be doing (i.e. the more modelling, IC paper writing, etc. you do, the better), and (5) the investment mandate of the fund (the more it's IRR driven versus being driven by national strategic goals, the better).

 

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