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WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
May 31, 2024
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
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+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
this role is just a shiny research position. the analysts aren't even allowed to go near the models. in my opinion, you're in a better shape for PE at a bulge bracket or elite boutique.
Did you really just say going to one of the few MF PE shops out of UG is not good preparation for PE? You do realize you are already in PE.... & to the main point the analysts are in fact deep in the models, though obviously when you are doing multi-billion take private transactions it is not a simple, couple tab model that is done by one person. This is the big leagues bud - its analysts/associates/their investment bankers (used Goldman for their most recent IPO) that are cranking these things out on any given deal. Back when I was going through recruiting these private equity analyst classes weren't really a thing but from what I've heard these are the coveted positions coming out of HYP now and will likely continue as PE firms look to develop in house talent as the industry matures
Not the Vista program. Their analysts are from schools like UT Austin, UVA, Amherst, University of Colorado, Boston College, and some from Penn (mostly not Wharton). Obviously a few kids from HYP, but never the top ones. I know from experience. Feel free to confirm on LinkedIn.
Can confirm. Vista analysts work banking hours with no modeling experience and unclear path to associate position
All three are top shops and you will definitely do hardcore modelling at all. From what I've seen, they take tippy top kids.
PE programs are starting to seriously recruit analysts/summer analysts with full intent to train them internally.
Blackstone and Ares both are doing pretty hardcore summer analyst programs right now, but KKR is only doing full time recruiting I believe, with their full time analyst program only starting to roll out en masse this year.
vista head and shoulders over Ares imo
I interviewed with and received an offer for the VEP analyst role. There is a massive amount of misinformation is this thread. There are many other specifically about, or mentioning, VEP on this forum that have answers to questions in here. Your job in PE is to uncover something unique about a company for a competitive advantage. What better practice than to prepare for interviews.
1) Analyst pedigree - Vista has analyst intakes from two routes: experienced hires, and campus hires. Your campus hires are pretty typical. You will see guys who were super pedigreed. Some have gone A2A.
You will also see guys who had non-traditional backgrounds (e.g., private debt, consulting, institutional sales, etc.) and then went in at the analyst level. Vista has a very unique screening system heavily based on a test that screens for attributes that you use to filter people that would be a good fit at Vista.
2) Nature of the analyst work. Vista is a B2B SaaS shop. As an analyst, you learn B2B SaaS non-GAAP modeling. I have written about this ad infinitum on this forum, and over the past year and a half specifically, it has been covered extensively. You will be doing cohort retention analysis, customer roll forward/back size analyses, you will be doing market sizing, you will effectively be doing everything but model. You slowly get model responsibilities over time (just like in any apprenticeship style role...) as you show you are capable. This is in direct contrast to typically Associate hires, who are almost always bankers with experience similar to GS TMT (someone who knows their salt in software modeling).
3) The culture seems fine. I know some guys who like it. It's hard at times, because they are constantly doing bolt-ons (literally constantly, it clogs up my newsletters) so you are seeing LOTS of reps. You should probably know about the virtuous cycle software M&A of borrowing against more revenue post-acquisition, bolstered by the fact that, in the words of Robert Smith himself, B2B SaaS contracts are better than first lien debt (as a quick aside, I have been waiting for the first recession to see if this is true; turns out, it is - people are quicker to default on their loans than get rid of the software you need to keep the lights on at your business). There are plenty of bad apples at VEP (just like other places) and that has been covered in another thread.
4) There are questions in the WSO database that I got in my interview, so shell out some clams and study up. Lots of questions are around understanding the software market, different "hot" areas, maturity of different relevant industries, etc. I talked about NLP, for example, but a perfectly good answer would have been frontier AI, etc. I get the sense that people with true passion for software are the ones that get the offers. It's pretty hard to fake it if you don't get turned on by B2B SaaS.
5) You will be sufficiently coveted by other MF shops if you recruit on-cycle as a VEP Analyst
6) Comp is lower than street. It's a slap in the face. But you get to work for VEP, so, tradeoffs.
85k base + 60-80k performance bonus. Source: I’ve seen an offer letter. That’s for first year analyst, not sure how it progresses but i assume they pay on par with the other MFs. Offices are SF/Chicago/Austin so any differences are probably cost of living adjusted
85/85 analyst
imagine living in Austin... fucking hell
People do crazy things to do MF PE lol
I similarly participated in the major PE processes. My take away from vista was that they seemed less concerned with a candidates ability to memorize and regurgitate the m&I 400 or other technicals but rather were focused on IQ, I.e. how smart someone actually is. They'll teach you what you need to know on the job they just want to find the smartest and hardest working people, hence they have candidates do two IQ tests during the process. I found a lot of "conventionally smart" people (target --> top bb internship) were weeded out once they were quantitatively compared to other candidates who come from a different background. Very interesting, & probably stems from Smith's mandate of promoting diversity & not being tunnel visioned into taking people who all look the same/come from the same background / etc.
Yup agreed with this - I have a mixed view on the result of this (for the analyst, I'm sure it works well for VEP). Works out well for those who aren't "conventionally successful" - know a guy from an LAC who struggled with technicals but managed to succeed at VEP because he did well on the IQ tests, and then they assume you know nothing coming in. If you are "conventionally successful" and IQ smart, almost ends up not being worth accepting the offer - you're likely to get other PE offers, and the comp at VEP even at the analyst level is worse than other shops (ex-BX). Also results in a really slow ramp - first few months are tedious because they assume you know no technicals, so it's a lot of rote cohort analyses, etc, whereas other PE firms that push you on technicals know you know your shit, so give you more meaningful work coming in.
Different results for different backgrounds, all works out in the end, and only applicable to those top few who are even getting offers from multiple PE funds.
I would disagree with this take. I think someone that manages to get offers from bx and vista are not going to make that decision based on a few thousand dollars at the analyst level. If they want to do tech PE they'll take vista if they want to do industrials/consumer/real estate/etc. they'll pick bx. Also I think the comparison of VEP analyst program to other PE associate program is not an accurate comparison. VEP associate vs other PE associate is more accurate and at that point the VEP associate has been working on LBO's for 2/3 years as an analyst and knows software/tech like the back of their hand so the technical knowledge aspect is nullified. Would put that experience above any tech ib role (GS/MS/Q) for actually learning how to think like an investor / understand how to truly value a company from a sponsors perspective