Reputation of Advent / Charlesbank / Berkshire & other Boston firms
Thinking of recruiting for PE firms in Boston and curious how top PE firms in Boston stack up
Any insight into reputation / preferences are much appreciated
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Lots of threads comparing individual names (ie advent vs Berkshire) but would break it down into the following groups. Excluding a bunch of "non top" names as well
MF/UMM: Advent, Bain, Berkshire - all great, lots of threads comparing these three. Pros and cons to all but can't go wrong. THL is probably in this bucket based on fund size but would say they’re probably considered a step down based on people I know who recruited vs the other 3
Growth (/ growth buyout): TA and Summit - two of what the best at what they do. Again, lots of comparing between these two but can't go wrong if you want growth. PSG in this bucket too but less proven than other two
MM: Charlesbank, Great Hill, Audax, Parthenon, Cove Hill many other small ones. All have different strengths so depends a bit on what you want. Those are probably the most well known / respected in the space
does Audax not qualify as a top MM?
Yup they’re really strong just forgot them. Personally didn’t recruit there because what I’ve heard on culture but good brand
Cove Hill, TH Lee?
Two more good ones I missed - will edit and add.
have SA offers from Charlesbank and Audax and was wondering which firm do you think I will 1: learn more from and 2: have stronger exits from. Culture is not a constraint (unless they're going to try and sabotage me from doing on-cycle PE)
Don’t know enough about the analyst programs to give a good answer but would say look at LinkedIn for previous analysts from both.
Will just add that Audax analysts are worked to the bone - probably worse than any other PE firm and most IB jobs. Would imagine it’s hard to recruit out of there purely because you have 0 free time.
What about Providence Strategic Growth (PSG)? Looks like they’ve grown pretty quickly
Would you say THL is above Audax / Great Hill / Other MMs?
IMO, yes. Only MM name I'd potentially entertain is Baypine, which is a new fund that raised like $2B for Fund I.
Co-worker used to work at Audax and he genuinely seemed like he was scarred by the experience. Said they're doing really well though but it just wasn't worth it for him to stay.
Would say Advent and Berkshire are likely a rung above Charlesbank, but not sure if there’s material difference between Advent and Berkshire - probably just depends if you want a MF or UMM experience (pls correct me though if this sounds off!)
Have friends that work/worked at Audax and am slightly familiar with Charlesbank. It is true, Audax works its junior people extremely hard, although it has gotten better in the past 3-4 years. Either way, expect to work .. a lot. However, if you can stomach the hours, it is well worth the experience. Similar to IB — the hours are brutal in investment banking but you’re setting yourself up for the rest of your career.
Audax is a buy and build shop and they aren’t afraid to pay the top price to acquire a platform. As a result, they get a tremendous amount of deals done. In an industry that measures you on the number of deals closed as opposed above all other metrics, Audax will give you an impressive transaction list that will help you land jobs at other MM PE funds. Furthermore, you will become incredibly proficient at analyzing companies, doing analyses, and definitely learn the art of deal doing. On top of all this, Audax is well known in the industry and respected as a great source of talent — just don’t expect them to win any awards for work/life balance.
do you think transitioning to MF PE at the associate level will be an issue for Audax/Charlesbank analysts?
Hard to say, but I do think it would require a bit of an adjustment for someone to go from Audax to a MF. Audax does a high volume of smaller deals, in part due to the buy + build strategy. These deals have quite different processes than the MF processes.
That said, if someone did BB banking working on large deals and then Audax, I think they would definitely get looks from MFs.
Cannot specifically speak to Charlesbank in regards to exit opportunities.
What have you heard on the Charlesbank side?
What about Providence Strategic Growth (PSG)? Looks like a quickly growing fund but where does it rank among these / most similar comp?
Thoughts on Cove Hill?
They’re a great fund - founders have very impressive backgrounds and they’re very very smart. Returns are also insanely good - know they’ve had multiple massive exits and fundraises show that.
Also look for a longer hold period than competitors (believe it’s 10 years) which is pretty unique.
Will be interesting to see how they evolve once they’re main founder steps away, think he’s been the driver of a lot of their success so would be curious to see how they think about succession
Have offers from a MM (think Audax/Cove Hill/Charlesbank). Incrementally is it big enough of a difference to recruit for UMM (Berkshire/Bain Cap/Advent)? Or are career opportunities similar enough / can transfer after a year if I end up deciding to from MM?
Bump
Berkshire has a great rep
how difficult is it for an analyst in Boston to transition to NYC/SF?
Not difficult at all.
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