Investment Banking or Private Equity
Some of these questions may seem elementary but I frankly do not have any private market experience so please bear with me. 1) I would like to explore working in the private market, and I am thinking whether I should first get some banking experience (e.g. TMT) or jump directly into privat equity. 2) It appears that pivoting into private equity is increasingly difficult the longer I stay at IB, but is the grass that much greener on the other side (WLB / Comp)? 3) It seems like an apple-to-orange comparison, but if I value optionality, do I theoretically have more exit opps working in banking with a strong brand name than a MM/LMM PE firm? Thank you!
1) Jumping from IB to PE post-MBA won't be super easy, but it's doable. You probably need to get banking experience first so you can learn how to manage a private transaction process - there are some skills you just don't have coming from your background. Luckily, you have true buyside/investing experience, so it'll be easier to make the transition to PE since you've worn the investor hat previously.
2) Agreed it's harder the longer you stay (also you'll probably come in at the post-MBA level regardless). Grass it's necessarily greener in PE. Hours are probably better if you're in LMM, but pay is more variable/deferred/uncertain with a carry component. At a semi-successful fund pay is probably higher. Work is probably more fun, but there is the aspect of portfolio management, which you may or may not like.
3). ehhhh not sure about that. I see the argument, but buyside doors close if you stay too long in IB, and you could leave PE for basically the same roles as you could leave IB (you're just not likely to leave PE...)
If you end up at some crappy LMM PE post MBA, opportunities can be limited. Seems to be the case at least at my school, the few PE summer interns I've spoken to seemed to be focusing on mostly micro-sized deal flow and pay well below market (at a T20-T25).
Out of all the finance jobs at my school, IB opens the most doors and it's not even close.
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