Benelux student investment clubs are finally catching up (Amsterdam)

I'm in PE in London, been in the industry a few years, started in leveraged finance. I see a decent amount of CVs and sit in on interviews occasionally. Student clubs come up more than you'd think, not because we actively look for them but because candidates bring them up and you can usually tell pretty quickly whether it meant anything or not.

One thing I have noticed over the years is that the Benelux student finance scene is genuinely underdeveloped compared to what you see out of the UK or even Germany. LSE, Oxbridge, Warwick, these schools have had serious investment societies for decades and the culture of doing real technical work inside those clubs is pretty established. In the Netherlands and Belgium that has never really been the case. 

The clubs that exist tend to be large, broad, more focused on events and exposure than on actually training people. The result is that Dutch and Belgian candidates, even from good schools, often come in a step behind on the technical side. Not always, but often enough that it is noticeable.

Which is what made a recent interaction stand out to me. Got reached out to by a group called Prometheus Capital at UvA. Honestly it's what made me start paying more attention to what is happening in Amsterdam. The students were sharp, prepared, had clearly done actual valuation work and could talk about it properly. It felt different from what I usually see coming out of that market.

If that is the direction things are moving in Amsterdam it is worth paying attention to. That kind of club, small, rigorous, serious about the work, is exactly what has been missing from the Benelux scene for a long time

check out their archive its pretty good