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Friend went there. Heard culture is great
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ignore title... sweatshop, culture is awful, folks at every level are miserable - do not go
Culture is notoriously bad
To reconcile these very different comments on culture^, I have two friends there on different teams, and they say very different things: one is in the flagship fund, who says culture is awful, and the other in their tech fund, who says things are generally really good. So I would at minimum avoid the flagship fund
agreed, avoid flagship.
They think they are all rocket scientists over there and the smartest people on the planet because of the Harvard legacy. Bunch of busts in the portfolio and very average returns in recent vintages. Overall very mid. Would avoid.
Lol, very accurate
exactly
listen to the capital allocators podcast with their CEO. Bruh talking about Monte Carlo simulations and shit
Yikes, is there anyone who has a positive opinion on culture/experience/performance? (Evaluating possible ASO offer)
No
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How about credit?
I’ve interacted with those guys too and they might actually be even more insufferable
These guys are super old school (maybe thinking about the flagship folks only). Tend to suck the air out of a room. They probably have mahogany paneling all over their walls and sit at massive desks that fill 80% of a room with secret mirrors installed to check themselves out. There are probably cameras in the restrooms to make sure dress code is respected too.
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Tons of junior attrition on the flagship team recently (like 50% of the top bucket associates/sr associates) causing the rest to get crushed by mid levels - from a friend who’s there now
Fade charlesbank. the returns are ass and culture at flagship is horrible. its a place for washed up consultants
thank you prospect
congrats on exiting to charlesbank
When you ask people what a JAMMBO looks like: Charlesbank is one of the first names that pop up alongside AEA, Providence, Onex, MDP, AmSec. Will probably struggle in the future since they have absolutely no differentiation. The only firm in that JAMMBO legacy UMM space that is even trying to pivot is THL, not sure what these funds are doing. Think their returns are 3rd quartile for their latest fund which is still better than the other names I listed above.
Curious on your thoughts around their ability to fundraise as I believe they're the only group on your list that has been raising larger and larger successive funds?
Agreed with both here in the sense that Charlesbank is quintessential JAMMBO but also has had decent fundraising progress (though imagine it’s a bit of a slog). I think they frame themselves as “a safe pair of hands” given their low historical loss ratios though I think their lagging consumer investments will probably hurt those.
I imagine a fine place as a VP / Principal though given the average tenure of some of their MDs path to promotion is probably going to be tough.
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