US PE opening office in London
Is it common for US PE firms to open London office and bring teams from the US to London? Does having a deal team in London help a lot with execution of European companies? Thanks!
Unless you speak a European language it probably won’t happen. I’ve seen it either done by acquiring an entire team (Thoma / half of Inflexion) or by sending people over to build it out but even when they send people over it’s generally Europeans who moved to the U.S. previously who now want to move back and generally they speak a European language. The reason is that if you’re coming from the U.S. with no network, no knowledge of accounting standards, legal frameworks or ways of doing business plus you can only work in deals in the U.K. it’s a pretty tough sell to your company.
Edit: there are exceptions to the above, e.g. if you’re at something as big and institutional as a Blackstone then not only is it possible it’s probably encouraged
To answer your other question, having a deal team in London certainly helps with acquiring European companies. Below a certain size I’d argue it’s pretty much impossible without having guys on the ground out here.
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