I'm curious to see if only people who worked in banking or management consulting (MBB, others that do CDD a lot like LEK or Parthenon) end up in PE...any other routes/backgrounds?
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I am in a MM PE fund and there is some spread of backgrounds here, but still quite limited to relevant industrie.
MBB: several ex-MBB who have had 4-10 years of prior experience there, no one from other consultancy firms. It takes quite some adjustment for some of them to become really familiar with the complex deal dynamics but they are analytically very strong. Currently my firm has stopped looking for ex-consultants though due to the fact that they need more time to be able to be 'all-round' members of a deal team
PE: several people with PE background. Both people making a move from large, leading international PE as well as working their way up from smaller PEs
CF/IB: several people with sell-side experience. No BB people in my firm at junior level but mainly MM shops, some local some in London. Some seniors do have BB experience. Currently, my firm is searching for people with BB experience (associate level)
There are no other backgrounds but I do know of some people being interviewed coming from corporate development backgrounds or country/region manager of larger corporations. Often they didn't make the cut because their technicals were significantly lagging.
In my group (MF team in Europe), everyone comes from BB/EB IBD
A few people in my field managed gulags and transferred over
Engineering, CF, and IB. At a MM PE fund in the Northeast, $5-10B AUM.
Has your fund interviewed people at MM credit funds? Would you guys be open to interviewing credit folks? Ex. Audax Credit, PennantPark, Varagon
Never interviewed candidates with that background, but I don’t see why we would be biased against them.
Good to know, thanks!
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