Southeast Asia Emerging Markets PE out of undergrad
Hi all, might be a bit esoteric or a reach but I'll try.
I'm currently a penultimate student based in Singapore and am keenly interested in Emerging Markets PE. I've set my sights on Vietnam and am wondering how PE is like in Emerging Markets in general, particularly Southeast Asia.
Interestingly I've seen a few fresh junior hires straight out of undergrad for firms such as Mekong Capital, with the new hires being a mixed of those having studied overseas and those from local schools, some with relevant internship experience and some not so much. Have also seen non-local internship hires before.
For mid-senior hires I've seen a mix from local big 4 TAS and some with US IB pedigree and background.
Anyone happens to know how pay and progression is like for these firms and if working there out of undergrad would be a good idea?
I'm not really concerned about getting megafund PE pay as I see things more of a long term bet and Vietnam is a country I hope to be able to do business in / work in sometime in the future.
I do have intermediate classroom fluency in the language and plan to boost it to business level fluency by the time I near graduation. Thanks in advance for the sharing and advice.
Roughly, there are three buckets of PE funds for SEA. Single country funds, regional funds and the large cap funds.
Fund sizes and pay scale up in that order. There is a natural cap to the size of single country funds because the market isn't deep enough to deploy hundreds of millions a year into any individual country.
Regional funds will typically be based in Singapore with satellite offices in key markets. The range of pay here can be wide, especially if you're based in the satellite offices. At the mid market level, hires are mostly locals with some pedigree (good universities, prior IB/consulting experience etc.). Language skills, local network and knowledge matters more than at the large cap funds
Large cap funds will almost exclusively be staffed in Singapore. Hires are typically US/UK grads and ex-BB IBD / MBB consultants. Pay will be a significant step up from the smaller funds but deal flow and progression tends to be slower.
From what I've seen, hiring out of undergrad is not the norm.
Hey thanks for the input appreciate it immensely! Do you happen to be based in Singapore? Any insight into any country based or regional funds which you think would make for an interesting place in future apart from your well-known names such as L Catterton, Dymon, Creador and Navis?
As an aside to the above how would you view working in LevFin at a non-BB i e. At one of the local/regional banks for a starting career and eventual jump to a regional or country based fund? (i.e. DBS, UOB, OCBC, Maybank, CIMB etc.) Apologies if I'm asking too much, just don't really seem to be able to find many posts about this around.
Would not advise levfin, especially at domestic banks if you want to end up in PE. Do IB, mgmt consulting or big4 CF/M&A. Or start at a smaller country fund and move to a regional fund later.
Thank you! Will bear that in mind!
How would the recruiting process look like for laterals from the US? Thanks!
Thanks for this breakdown, not sure how I missed this thread earlier. For background I'm at a regional infra fund in SG, formerly from a semi-target uni and infra advisory grad program. Is it common for people to go from regional funds to large cap funds in your experience? Trying to get a sense of how difficult it would be for me and if a target school MBA/MFin would help. Intention is to try and build a long-term career in large cap infra.
Not as familiar with infra but for what it's worth, regional to large cap jumps happen and I imagine infra would be a little less selective that corporate PE. Still, the scarcity of seats will always make it a crapshoot and getting a target MBA is no guarantee--imo not worth the risk and opportunity cost.
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