PGIM Real Estate Equity Opinions?

Tigernation8694

Thank you for the advice. How does one move from a PGIM to a bigger fund that is less core focused and more opportunistic and higher pay ceiling (Brookfield, Starwood, Carlyle etc.)? Would it require an MBA, lateral, or could I do it with just good work on deals and networking?

I almost went this route in 2010 (instead the market decided I’d be a developer; also I didn’t get the job after interviewing, I was in a room full of impressive sounding people at the Super Day ie Harvard grads, and I came from the University of Hawaii, the Harvard of the Pacific!).

First of all, PGIM is not a LifeCo (which to me is a means to earn returns to fund life insurance obligations).  PGIM has Investment Management in its initials and they manage money for a variety of pension funds (a lot might have changed since):

• PRISA (core)
• PRISA II (value add)
• PRISA III (value add/opportunistic)
• Separate accounts (domestic and foreign pension fund stand alone funds)
• Hedge fund business
• Merchant banking (which was more entity level investing)
• Senior housing 

• Private credit/mezz, which I worked on the early beginnings of this in 2008 with looking at A and B note purchases and Repo lines

  
  It’s just these funds are open ended. Meaning, there’s no, winding up of the fund and calculating the total profit. It just continues.  Maybe things are different today.   I know Senior Housing has vintages of funds. 
   

  A lot of the money made on the Acqusitions side is from placing equity capital from these buckets of money I mentioned above.  You learn the investment game, from understanding what is institutional grade at the moment (property and sponsor), to how to pitch to the right portfolio manager, navigating IC, and then building a relationship with sponsors to get them to take the good enough deal and not just shop their deals. 
  
  I think a move to a firm like Starwood is doable from PGIM.  Carlyle might prefer MBA.  I had the profile good enough to get interviews. If you are looking for “opportunistic” and thus perceived “high paying” then I wouldn’t just focus on the mega REPE firms.  But firms where you can get a bigger slice of the pie that are also opportunistic.   If money is what you care about, then a larger slice of the pie of a REPE that is core, core plus works as well. Just because the investment mandate is opportunistic (which tends to be a smaller fund than core and value add), doesn’t mean it necessarily makes more money overall.