Understanding a fund’s investment approach and strategies

Hello,

I have to be honest with you but I have read posts when candidates interviewing for a PE or a GE fund being asked “what do you know about our investing strategies and why would that make us unique or what do you like about them”, I have not found a good way to answer that question.

Would reading “our approach” section on their website be sufficient enough to answer this question?

Also, to be frank and please correct me if I am wrong, it is quite generic to read these “our approach” sections from some funds since they will say something like “we value partnership”, “our criteria to invest are…”, “we play a key role developing our portfolios’ businesses…” To me, it sounds so generic. My personal analogy is there are so many different brands of allergy pills but they have the same ingredients. I guess what make these products unique is the different labels…

Please share your thoughts on how approach these questions.

Thank you!

3 Comments
 
Most Helpful

The reality is that there is way less differentiation than what funds claim.

To answer the question though you might want to look that the last 5-10 deals they have done and see how that fits with their stated strategy. Eg if it’s a B2B services strat and they did a B2C deal, why?

Differentiation can come a combo of:

  • sector/sub sector specialization
  • check size
  • approach to sourcing
  • approach to deal evaluation
  • portfolio value add
  • composition of firm that supports above
 

franco

The reality is that there is way less differentiation than what funds claim.

To answer the question though you might want to look that the last 5-10 deals they have done and see how that fits with their stated strategy. Eg if it's a B2B services strat and they did a B2C deal, why? Differentiation can come a combo of: - sector/sub sector specialization - check size - approach to sourcing - approach to deal evaluation - portfolio value add - composition of firm that supports above

Hi Franco, long time no talk. How have you been? Thank you for the response!

 

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