Capital Markets position to Real Estate Private Equity

Hi all,

I am to start a rotational grad programme at BNP Paribas London next year & I was thinking about career progression of the same after roles in Capital Markets. As a brief explanation, the S&T division of BNP (entitled 'Global Markets') has a fair bit of origination work with corporates, governments, non bank lenders & others. The origination & syndicate teams produce ABS products for investors & pitch these to investors on roadshows, including MBSs & other more esoteric debt products, which can include a fair bit of modelling, since the team needs to understand the underlying assets very well.

I have a growing interest in Real Estate Private Equity - I know that recruiting into the industry is quite unstructured & networking goes a long way. But would there be much scope in moving from one of the roles mentioned above into an investing role in RE PE?

I realise that a more straightforward way of entering the industry would be doing an MBA at a good university & then RE PE recruiting straight out of that, but I was curious as to whether I could skip the MBA part?...

Thank you!