PSA: Astorg (London office) - Do NOT join!
Left before Christmas prior to end of my internship contract and it was a horrible experience.
- Culture amongst interns is mixed.
- Seniors are by-and-large mediocre (to compensate, they can sometimes be very toxic).
- Mood is depressing in the office (most probably due to the way the office is arranged).
- Mid-cap team is ridiculously sweaty.
- Pay was really below market.
Didn't really learn anything apart from a few repetitive "secretary-like" tasks.
Don't recommend, don't join.
Wow, sorry to hear. I’d heard it was bad, but hadn’t imagined that.
I was wondering how they were able to take on so many interns, as intergrating interns into any deal process is not worth the return if it’s 6 mos and out. Sadly makes a lot more sense if they’re just paper boys.
Mind if I PM to hear more about your experience? Happy to keep anon.
What were the: few repetitive "secretary-like" tasks.
I'll give you one example to highlight the braindead nature of my tasks.
97% of the time was spent transcribing phone calls from interviews with experts when acquiring port-cos. There was virtually no time spent doing anything else aside from listening to transcripts, which meant that I couldn't do other tasks.
We did suggest using a 3rd party transcription service or an AI-service if it was accurate enough but they weren't willing to subsidise the budget to make it work purely for operational reasons even though it would have freed the team to accelerate the deal process.
How is this possible? Expert call networks (Alpha Sights/GLG etc) provide transcripts of the calls.
Was it experts they sourced themselves?
Unfortunately I think this is a pattern across French places at least. Have friends who interned at Astorg, PAI and IK Partners (Honorary French fund) and the feedback is always the same. Extremely hierarchical places with toxic culture and mind numbing tasks for interns.
I would have happily exchanged my experience for a better one if there was more guidance and a better culture to the one I experienced there. It just didn't feel like a collegiate culture, anything but that.
I would add to it that often it was the D and MDs that were a bit "crap" that made up for it by being toxic instead of just accepting that they're in the wrong and a bit underdeveloped in terms of their skillset. I remember it used to take 8 minutes for a file to load on the firm's servers, which just didn't happen when I interned at a BB elsewhere!
Absolutely. Would add ARCHIMED (both US and Europe offices) as another firm to avoid for those exact reasons. Terrible culture.
Does anyone have a perspective from associate / investment manager level?
Okay thanks, Intern.
No worries, Astorg HR!
Been saying this for ages, it's such a shit firm. They advertise the internship like it's a once in a lifetime (prestigious opportunity) when all you're doing is bullshit tasks that are an insult to your intelligence. Pay is ass as you said, shameless organisation.
French PE is a joke
Did a stint at PAI, sadly would have to agree.
Can you elaborate? Have an offer in one but would appreciate insights on the broader French PE landscape, particularly for London offices. Thank you!
Inaccurate, if you look at the returns, most French Funds (except Astorg) are either in or close to the top quartile. The culture being toxic & mind numbing tasks for interns is true though.
Context: Interned at a French Fund, now heading FT to a US MF you’d sell your left nut to work for
I would rather be banished to the micro market for the rest of my career than work for anything French.
Hate us because they ain’t us, have fun slaving away with 3 days of PTO/y for carry that will never pay out.
Seems from your comment history that you’re another one of those MAGA tardos, so I’m not surprised by your lack of judgement & 2 digit IQ
It's almost funny how the only thing you cooked Frenchie's see as a win over American's is that you're lazy and can't stand to work without getting a month's long vacation to circle jerk about the cultural relevance your country lost almost 100 years ago. All while simultaneously celebrating your progressiveness by watching your women get stabbed for not wearing a burqa in downtown Paris and electing a President that married a troon 40 years his senior. Enjoy your single digit GDP growth over the past decade, feel free to give us a call once you're learned Arabic and can pay for your own defense like a big boy.
Flat out wrong, just look at the numbers - any T10 city in France has a lower crime/agression/murder/rape rate than our American equivalents. Funnily enough, once we dig deeper its also evident that newcoming migrants have a lower crime rate post arrival in territory than in the States. Talk about GDP growth, yeah sure - intrinsic economic value creation isn’t measured by Equities or by the wealth accumulated by the top 0.01% but by your middle class…which has been getting wiped out in the last 20 years. Take a look outside of the coasts and you’ll see in what kind of a shithole 95% of your population lives in. Regarding defense, yeah you’ve got a point, though I’d like to see how beneficial were the trillions poured in the war in Afghanistan & invasion of Irak, especially given how it destabilized the Middle East ever since; shit tbf you probably can’t even locate them on a map. Idk about you but I’d rather live in a country where anyone has access to top tier healthcare rather than a country who’s political agenda is steered by weapon lobbyists.
Will add that the US is arguably more cooked than Europe & France, that big ole service Economy of yours is unsustainable assuming DJT follows on with his idiotic tariffs. They’re also forcing us to reindustrialise ourselves and reinvest in our own defense… at your expense. You had us as arms customers & geopolitical allies, you’re losing us on both ends.
Will finish by saying that China is going to eat you guys in the next 5-10 years. Long gone will be the days of worldwide American cultural dominance. Seems like your leaders can’t comprehend that it’s impossible to impose tariffs on a country able to produce T-shirts for USD0.001 and that also has the Tech to build Nuclear powerplants & Software Leaders.
This isn't even remotely accurate lmfao
I don’t have a horse in the race and I’m not going to use specific fund names, but in an attempt to make this a more constructive thread instead of just throwing shit - undoubtedly things could be better and it does sound off-market to not just use GLG.
However, you also need to realise what these internships are. PE funds do not have any leverage at the bottom except for associates, who frequently would be associates at banks at that point and feel somewhat entitled to not be doing all the shit shoveling by themselves. However because there’s naturally less leverage at a fund vs a bank everyone is ‘playing down’, and that’s because there’s more at stake and fewer safety nets. Where in banks it seems VPs, let alone Directors think they’re above opening excel or PowerPoint, at funds even Partners can be seriously in the weeds. The role is just different.
The unfortunate result of this is, is that there’s no one really to share the grunt work with for the interns. The reality is that you’re an intern and you don’t have any experience to offer nor any real hard skills. At the same time there’s loads of shit to shovel. So guess where it ends up frequently? Your plate indeed. Not to say that you shouldn’t underestimate the amount of shit shoveling teams do themselves.
Because there is typically no way to convert the funds are not trying to make it a 3-6 months sandbox for you to do your LBO model in, contrary to banks who approach it simply as a recruiting channel and try to make you feel good before they give you a way worse experience once you’ve joined. Funds are actually looking for leverage. And that leverage it you. If you thought that you were going to contribute anything meaningful to any work done in the building beyond making slides or doing research your expectations were simply wrong. That might very well be because of how they pitched it, or it might be because of what you expected of it. If it’s the former, that’s on them - if it’s the latter, welcome to the real world. For what it’s worth, I always make abundantly clear to our prospective interns what the day to day job entails so we rarely have these issues. I think you owe that as an employer to the intern, but equally I’d expect the interns to do what’s thrown at them without complaining as that’s what we all signed up to.
The final thing I’d say is that the intern experience is very dependent on your own abilities and attitude. Our best interns act as analysts or even junior associates at times. Our less gifted interns are stuck doing more basic research and slide building for most of their time. It’s a two way street on these things, just as it will be when you get a real job.
Happy to debate
Confidential
No clue who that is but pretty low and immature move to name drop people just like that
so you were an intern asked to do intern tasks and then you left because you didnt like intern tasks?
Doing transcripts 97% of the time is not an intern task.
I'd have been happy honestly with just maintaining data rooms, answering prompts on data points, scheduling meetings and making the Directors' lives easier if such tasks were possible because at least, I get an idea of how these things are managed professionally and how to best optimise these tasks in the PE / IB sector.
Being a random transcription monkey when there are literal services for this (AI or not) and are included in the cost of e.g. AlphaSights is not that.
Listen, I obviously don't who you are, how likeable and professional you are or what your attitude at work is. I also have nothing to do with Astorg. But as someone who has managed internship programs at funds before, your experience sounds to me like that of an intern the investment team has sidelined.
You say you'd like your D and MDs to accept that they are "crap", "toxic" and "underdeveloped in their skillset" because one of their interns say so? Dude, c'mon, not matter how you look at this, these are industry veterans who have been working in the industry and generating returns probably from the time you were born.
So I am going to chalk this up to an attitude issue. You complain about having to transcript expert calls. If I were an intern, this is a task that I would have loved to do. Have you considered the learning opportunity in this - what are the experts saying about market growth rates for the deal, what's their viewpoint on how the company under consideration is growing relative to the market, what's the comp set look like, how fragmented is the market, what's this company's margin profile vs peers? Frankly, understanding deals and industries like this is way better than just diddling around in Excel. It wasn't your job to find efficiencies, your job was to be a sponge and learn everything you can without creating more work for anyone else.
Private Equity Internship - Astorg (London) - MidCap Investment Team - Immediate Start
Guarantee compensation is £30,000🤣🤣
Genuine question, what do you think is fair for an intern?
Considering living expenses in London, the experience needed to even be considered (usually 6-9 months of PE/IB experience), and the process of getting an offer (competing vs 500+ people), £40k should be the minimum. Interns should be treated as analysts in the first place. I'm not saying an off-cycle intern should be building LBOs immediately, but there has to be some responsibility and value-add. Completing simple tasks is just an insult too. Why lie to prospective applicants? And before anyone starts coming at me, I actually completed a 6 month internship abroad (Europe) in PE - 1,300 euros per month- where I was responsible for building detailed models (+ portco work) and contributing to each IC meeting.
Do they sponsor visas?
Any updates since the last time given they posted new OCs earlier in the month?
European bankers in London in general are just VERY political. Great to have a pint with at the Angelsea or go to Scotch with, but deeply segmented and old school. Probably great if you're a native or French/Italian speaker but less so good if you're somehow grouped with them. Only hire from the same grand ecoles or Bocconi, socialize with their nationality (which tbf, i kinda get) etc.
For me It’s because i just get along so much more with other Europeans (esp. italians as an Italian). Our culture is very different from British culture and I quite struggle to bond with English people
I have found Brits in PE significantly more reserved and “do your job and go home” type people that don’t really express any opinion that’s not related work. Hard to have a real conversation or get to know their real thinking
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