Silver Lake cancels analyst program
Surprised there wasn’t any posts specifically about this. Know Silver Lake did not extend returns to any interns and are canceling (?) the program, what does this mean for PE analyst programs in general? Also, will silver lake now have more spots during on-cycle or off-cycle?
It means that kids suck at modeling / decks / reasoning out of college. Have heard many other programs griping about quality of candidates. Makes no sense to pay top dollar to train less efficiently than a bank.
It's economies of scale. It's incredibly time-consuming expensive to train a handful of candidates up to the same level as banking... banks train hundreds of analysts every year and they have so many deals going on for an extreme number of reps. You're going to be more involved in your deal or two at Silver Lake, but you're not going to be working on 30+ different projects a year like you would at GS & co.
I don't think the candidates are any less "quality" than BB/EB candidates - probably the opposite - they just don't have a literal army to train them like BBs do and the banking analysts end up ahead when they start there at ASO.
Even at a large firm like BX it's the same situation, very challenging to replicate that kind of training and reps.
Isn’t Silver Lake’s latest fund in the shitter? I doubt them shuttering their analyst programs has implications across the board. BX & KKR return rates were in line with historical, Vista was 10/13, unsure about Ares or others but everyone else was business as usual.
BX/ KKR was not in line with historical...maybe 50% offer rates across groups.
KKR gave 1/4 in menlo last year, 0/2 NY TMT this year, BX has always hovered around 50% and was 60% across BCP & BEP. Returns were not anomalous. SLP is not the bellwether this post makes it seem it is.
Vista was 10/13 across all offices? Or just SF?
Their intern program runs in Austin. I believe they’re moving it to Chicago.
BX/KKR had low return rates, ares PC had 10% return offer rate in some offices
probably focused efforts on diversity hiring, trying to get 50% women etc.
bet if they just picked the smartest, best performers even if it meants 99% white/asian males, they wouldnt have this situation of their analysts being "subpar"
x
If this prospect (lol) actually knew who they took, would quickly realize that these people really are the best and the brightest, in fact one of the analyst programs that least focused on diversity in my opinion
A few reasons (heard from this summer's interns):
- took a large class (6/7 Evercore interns) of analysts so no need for additional analysts
- headcount reduction due to downturn in deals
- last fund not doing well (underwriting a smaller new fund/fewer deals?)
Were these analysts recruited for 2023 start or 2024?
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