‘Playing up’ in Private Credit
I was reading a finance book and saw that many young investors (late 20s to mid 30s) had lots of say and autonomy to make decisions in a distressed debt deal process. Is that consistent today across private credit, distressed debt, or special sits at all, or is it very bureaucratic / procedure-based like private equity?
Can confirm private credit is just like the rest of em. And tbh, everything is very similar to investment banking, given everyone is an ex-banker. They might make it seem like better culture or less of a grind on the buyside. But it’s still a grind, working late nights and through weekends often. Everyone acts nice, but toxicity festers across most offices. You have to think about if the deal is good or not when putting together a memo, but you don’t have any say at the end of the day.
Wow that sucks :/. Is it the same in distressed debt / special sits funds as well? I want to eventually work in a role where even juniors get autonomy and the power to make decisions / think creatively but it seems like everything is so bureaucratic.
Your best chance would be in an opportunistic / distressed / special sits fund. Even more so in a smaller group with a lesser fund size. Would vary group by group still.
Early stage industries allow for more autonomy and merit based decision making. As industries get more mature, they fall prey to ‘paying your dues’ and time based hierarchy. As other comments have said, the inflow of bankers has brought in banking hierarchy
Higher in the capital structure -> less diligence needed -> small deal teams -> more responsibility for jrs. But decisions are made by IC.
I started serving on steercos and having real say in distressed / workout processes across owned portcos, illiquid lending deals, and liquid market situations starting in my mid 20s and ramping from there…I was around 27/28 when I’d say I directly managed a distressed situation origination to exit for my firm (MM special sits PE/lending with HF DNA, no longer there). Several variables need to exist for this to happen as I don’t think it’s very common at all; the most important variables being lean deal team size, personal competency and forwardness, and firm buy in. In my situation I was staffed on a vertical that was just myself and a partner. We focused on shorter duration investments which helped me get “completion” reps on deals fairly quickly and presented an opportunity for me to play up a bit more during each deal. Being proactive and not just resigning yourself to be a model monkey it’s important here…make it clear you have an ownership mentality with your deals and your partners franchise at the firm and start to learn process patterns. The partner was more than happy to have some stuff taken off his plate and had confidence in me (effectively absorbing all work streams from analyst -> VP) and had more time to focus on boards / portco mgmt and anything that was really a principal matter. This was in part by design on my part as I knew this was the path to faster responsibility and recruited at firms where I thought this existed…just not possible at places with lots of layers and institutionalized processes…but I was extremely fortunate to work with a partner who allowed me to take swings. The deal I mentioned above that I got to run solo on basically included everything from originating and underwriting the opportunity and getting through IC, retaining and managing third party advisors, and most stuff with the BK process / debtors counsel and advisors through exit. Even though the partner/IC stayed involved and supervisory I knew in this particular case I’d probably be fired if it blew up, but fortunately worked out.
Which book was this
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