New PE Fund Ranking Method - Fund Size Per Associate
Best indicator of upward mobility and selectivity/exclusivity.
Example 1 (Bloated Stagnant Megafund): $25bn latest fund size, first year associate class size of 50
Fund Size Per Associate: $500MM
Example 2 (Lean Fast Growing UMM): $8bn latest fund size, first year associate class of 5
Fund Size Per Associate: $1.6bn
Second one has much better upward mobility and likely comparable comp. Plus you don't need to claw your way to a VP promote when there's 3 seats for 50 associates.
Some firms always want to stay lean meaning upward trajectory is foggy. Fund growth is the best indicator
Genstar has ~$13B fund and 4 associates per class...
FWIW, I also don't know of MFs with class sizes that large, but guess I could be wrong. I think most firms naturally scale their associate classes for fund size, maybe with the exception of outliers like Genstar (agree), Clearlake (notoriously lean), and others.
My rule of thumb (triangulated using a few names that I know) is probably ~$700-900M/associate (e.g., $2-3B MM fund probably has classes of 3-4, $8B UMM has classes of 7-10, etc.).
AKA, I don't think there's much to read into here besides self-affirming that bigger funds are more mature and probably have less room for advancement without continued step-ups in fund size / additional strategies.
This is a really silly metric
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