Mega REPE vs <$10B AUM

Why go to a mega REPE shop when you can get more carry with a smaller group? I get that some people like a little more stability or higher base and like saying they work at BX but I just don’t see the draw. Just want to hear people’s thoughts/stories

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Some people only want to work on $100MM+ sized deals and have a high base salary and 50-100% bonus every year and be able to say they do important work at a Blackstone/KKR/Starwood/Brookfield. Others want to say they joined a small "start up" with only a few properties in their portfolio and grew it to a multi-billion dollar fund over their career. And like you said, these smaller funds will typically give carry earlier in someone's career than a MF REPE, so that also entices people. I went for a middle market national developer (national meaning a few developments in each region but focused in on 1-2 regions in particular) with only a few $B AUM and liked that we are in a high growth phase without all the risk of a brand new firm that could collapse with 1 or 2 meh deals. 

 

There’s definitely a middle ground. If you join the right shop, you can definitely make more money than some “principal” at blackstone.

But there’s more risk to it. Maybe the firm blows up, maybe the founder doesn’t share his equity generously enough, etc. But there are people who joined Angelo Gordon at the right time and then retired when they were 40 (Source is a founder of a RE firm who was telling me to stop being a baby about accepting lower comp when leaving IB).

Firms with less than $10bn aren’t exactly startups though… weird that you selected that number. My firm has less than $10bn and pays more than “megafunds” like Carlyle lol

 

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