Hi guys, so I was recently certified and this is my first post ever in WSO. I guess a Q&A would be quite benefical to the WSO community, especially to my fellow Asian/South East Asian or basically anyone working in the region. My background, in summary: 1. 3rd year analyst at a boutique PE fund in the SEA region. 2. Bachelor's degree at an average uni in the UK. No other certificates, networked my way into this position. 3. Exposure at both PE (growth equity/late-stage)/VC (early-stage) level (as an independent analyst for a CVC through the Shark Tank tv show in my country). 4. My team is quite small so I get to work directly with C-level execs and get involved in all parts: from inception to disbursement & post-investment. I will try to answer all questions, if possible. Thank you all ####WSO Mentors Want to work with me? Check out my profile here
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Lol buddy read the description. Southeast Asia, not Seattle.
Awesome thanks for doing this! How many rounds of interviews? What material did you use to study? Is there a ton of opportunity to get PE jobs like yours in Sacramento?
Mate, Im not sure about Sacramento but I can outline a bit of the process here with buy-side PE/VC firms here in South East Asia.
1st: Headhunt phone interview: usually 15 - 20 mins chit chat on your background, what you look for and if youre interested in the position they are offering. Then they will refer you to their client 2nd: High-level interview (phone/video call): usually the MD or the Partner himself will test the waters, a short 30 mins call discussing your background, your strengths & weaknesses, investment ideas & philosophy, etc... 3rd: Technical interview: a couple of Associates/Principals (VP) will drill you for 1-2 hours on past experiences, every deal you have made/participated in. They will test your finance/investment knowledge base as well as real life experience. 4rd (not common): Case study/Investment valuation: you're expected to analyse a given company/business idea in a set timeframe (2-3 hours) and give recommendations back to the MD 5th: if you have passed the first 3 - 4 rounds, youre 90% in. The last round will be a dinner with the team. Considering how small the teams are in SEA, this is very important that a candidate will be a fit, culturally and professionally.
The whole recruitment process will basically take anywhere from 1 - 2 months.
EDIT: forgot on the material I used to study: so to prepare for this I had a mentor who have interviewed a lot of candidates for PE/VC in the region. He gave me some nice really nice tips: 1st: you have to own all your past experience, like really know every little details. Also be creative, think alot what would you have done differently if you were in charged of making investment decision. In buy-side world, they look for investors to-be, not just execution-er. So brush up on your investment ideas/philosophy and be prepared to defend your thesis. 2nd: Try to interview a lot, the more you do the more experience you get. 3rd: On the knowledge side, its hard to say. Sometimes the employer will throw in some really random finance/investment questions just to test your ability to think on your feet. It helps if you studied CFA/CAIA and such, give you a broad knowledge base of the investment world. 4th: Make great use of the Private Equity Interview Course on WSO, really helps.
Hope this helps. Cheers!
Hey mate, thanks for asking!
I do sometimes see people from sales & trading backgrounds in the PE space, but not too common. But you are right, getting an MBA is crucial for making a jump from equity desks to PE, my senior was a PM for a couple of years, took an MBA and then got her gigs in the PE industry. But to be honest it is not advisable, most of what you do in sales & trading wont be carried fwd to PE/VC space, so it could be a waste of time. Equity research, on the other hand, is more relevant to PE/VC space than sales & trading. IB is the traditional route so I have no comments.
In the SEA region, we can clearly see that Vietnam & Indonesia & Malay are 3 of the top, most attractive markets right now thanks its their large, young pop base and increasing in disposable income. Every fund is buying into this same story, hence its quite competitive in sectors such as consumer goods, TMT, retail, education, healthcare, etc... However, the bad side is that exit opps are not looking as good as we want them to be, yet. (read: IPO, trade sales, buyout) In a way, these are still emerging markets so it will take time until maturity.
Thanks for asking mate.
1) Interesting industries to look for Vietnam: Education/Healthcare/Renewable Energy these are the boom sectors in VN right now. The general public will pay mad money for good quality private education & healthcare which means awesome payday for investors in those sectors. Parents will go into debt just to put kids in the best schools possible. RE is really hot in the last 2 years thanks to government incentives (Feed-in-Tariff for solar energy is 9.35cent/kwh compare to India 4cents/kwh or Thailand 5cents/kwh. For wind is 8.7cents/kwh).
Indo: Healthcare/Education/Retail: large customers base (264 million), increasing disposable income in MAC population translate to increase in consumtion & demand for healthcare/education/retail.... The healthcare industry in Indo is really hot right now.
2) Valuations are high right now, thanks to stable political environment in SEA and hyper economic growth. The other reason is that there are so much dry power in the region right now and not so many good deals out there, hence funds are fighting cats and dogs over the good ones which really inflated the price. However, a boutique MM fund we dont and cannot compete in price with other MFs so we tend to stay away from overly-hyped assets.
3) Internal & External:
Internal: our team members, even at analyst level, are expected and encouraged to source deals, because we understand the fund's investment appetize hence the quality of the deal we source ourselves are pretty good. In 20 deals we have made over the past 9 years, 60% of them were sourced in-house.
External: through all channels really: Big4 advisory, IBs domestically & regionally, coldcall, cold-email, a friend of a friend of a friend's neighbour who works at a abc xyz company. South East Asia is really small so I guess people bounce ideas back and forth quite frequently.
In short, for a MM fund, we have more deals than we can actually handle.
Thanks for asking ! Per my knowledge of the two markets that I am most familiar with:
In Singapore, base salaries look something like this, for MM boutique funds: * Analyst: SGD 50 - 70K/annum (USD 36 - 51K) for both VC/PE * Associate (pre-MBA): SGD 70K - 80K (USD 51 - 58K) * Sr. Associate/Principal (post - MBA): SGD 100K - 120K (USD 73 - 88K)
The beautiful thing in Singapore that PIT is really low. Say you make SGD 160K all-in (USD 117K) , guess how much you pay in income tax for that year ? A mere SGD 13750 (USD 10K). Hence, lots of IB guys and PE/VC bros in Sing effectively save 50% of their income after taxes and living expenses.
In Vietnam, boutique MMs pay: * Analyst: USD 18 - 22K p.a * Associate: USD 30 - 36K * VP: USD 48 - 60K * AD: USD 60 - 70K * D: USD 90 - 100K
MFs in Vietnam pays a little bit higher at top levels, like the Korean/Japanese/European MF can pay 30% above market average. PIT is higher in Vietnam than in Singapore,* if you make USD 100K, you'll pay 35% in tax*. But then again living expenses in Vietnam is 30% lower than Singapore. In terms of total comp it varies a lot, I have seen some really big pay day at some MF funds where the lowest paid analyst received 24 months salary in bonus, but on average bonuses will equal to 30 - 50% of your base salary.
Indo/Malay/Philippines/Thailand the wages are within those ranges.
Jap & China & Hong Kong & Korea are a higher, like 20 - 40% compare to South East Asia.
Hope this helps!