PE Secondaries Day-to-Day

Was wondering what those of you that work in secondaries do on a day-to-day basis? I have heard it’s very modeling heavy. Can the skills be transferred to buyout if you go straight from Undergrad -> secondaries? Have a tough time making this decision, as I am picking between MM IB and Top 5 PE Secondaries fund out of college (2 offers). There’s pros and cons to both, but secondaries seems like the hottest thing right now - will it stay course/continue to grow rapidly? 

16 Comments
 

Secondaries will be a growing space for the coming decades so it is a great vertical to build your career if you find it interesting.

Having said that, my understanding is that they are not too modeling heavy, compared to the rest of PE.

 

Its fund modeling (almost all reputable groups will model each underlying company as well) on the LP-side and company modeling on the GP-led side, although on the GP side you're largely leveraging the sponsor/bank provided model.

There's also a fair amount of cash flow modeling/distribution waterfalls for more bespoke transactions, which there are a lot of right now (pref deals, etc).

I would say our junior employees these days spend almost all their time modeling. But its not really a skill that's transferable to direct PE

If you find it interesting go for it. But don't use it as a short stop to get to direct PE.

 

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