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Best Response

I'd guess this varies significantly from firm to firm. At my LMM PE internship, the biz dev group focused on building relationships with potential acquisitions (bolt-on or platform). New relationships could be developed either through personal connections, conferences, or cold-calling. The junior guy's job was literally to cold-call companies in our target industries all day, often without much idea of a given company's revenue or profitability - this job sounded terrible and probably paid less than $75k. The senior traveled a good amount to conferences/trade shows and built up relationships to essentially hand off to the investment team. I'm not certain of her pay scale.

I can't really speak to exit opportunities beyond saying that I highly doubt these roles transition well to investment positions. As I said, this could be much different at other firms, particularly at larger PE shops. Hope that helps!

 

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mensmario1984

Wanted to ask those in the industry. How difficult is it to get in a PE business development role? what are the common skill sets and requirements?

Thanks in advance

Given there aren't that many of them, probably very difficult. Most in that role have some prior experience in PE/IB/Consulting from my experience.

The biggest skill is someone that is sociable. You are going to be on the phone constantly "catching up" with investment bankers and trying to drum up deal flow. You will be networking hard and assisting in marketing at various events across the country.

 

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