Day in the life of a PE intern
How was your experience? Coffee runs or lbo models? How did your relationships with those your worked most with develop by the end? Advice?
How was your experience? Coffee runs or lbo models? How did your relationships with those your worked most with develop by the end? Advice?
+41 | Boomerang from PE back to IB? | 6 | 2d | |
+40 | Trading PE Secondaries? | 27 | 3d | |
+34 | Best Tech PE Deals Ever? | 29 | 1d | |
+31 | Joining an exciting new Software Rollup over PE/ Growth Equity? | 24 | 1d | |
+20 | Autism in PE | 4 | 3d | |
+20 | Advice Needed: Starting Career at Smaller PE Firm | 6 | 2d | |
+20 | F500 Corp Dev (Manager), Or PE Portco Corp Dev (Mid-Level) | 5 | 7h | |
+19 | Funds with the best culture | 20 | 4h | |
+19 | PE BD/IR | 7 | 4d | |
+18 | PE offer — Post reference check waiting too long | 6 | 1d |
Career Resources
Check out this AMA https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/ama-private-equity-internships, also you can find similar threads if you search around
What kind of work is ideal to do during a PE internship? (Originally Posted: 07/17/2010)
Hi,
I am a college student choosing between some internships for the fall semester. One is a small, regional PE shop. I want to see if this will provide me with good experience, so:
That sounds terrible. I was being serious.
Doubt they are going to have a sophmore build an LBO model during a PT internship, but of course it is a good opportunity and a good line on your resume. You will gain relevant experience whether it's learning the basics of modeling, sourcing companies on CapIQ and building databases of possible investment opportunities, or researching different companies or industries. Modeling only takes a small percentage of your time in banking, more time is spent on menial tasks that need to be done. You can spin your experience into being as relevant as you make it sound.
May I ask an brief example of how you source companies in Cap IQ?
My fund uses Pitchbook and it is considering acquiring a license for Cap IQ.
Thanks a lot,
Hmm ok.. that's too bad..
sourcing -- working with big databases of companies and typing in names of CEOs, transcribing telephone numbers and addresses into salesforce databases to get some names for networking later on
working on administrative things like paperwork, copying and assembling paper, printing, binding to get an idea of how an office works
those are your best bets
What would it take to get this d-bag removed from the site?
To the OP...anything will be good, because you will get to put the experience on your resume but make sure you go above and beyond with anything you do when you are there. There will be obvious limitations to what you can and will be allowed to do but always ask about opportunities to do things that require higher level of responsibilities. Oddly, I was CC'd on an email from one of my firm's partners (I'm FT at a boutique PE) about a new potential deal he was asking help on. Essentially the email was to the Principals, implying that one of them add it to their plate. I responded that I had some additional "bandwidth" mostly to be sarcastic because I am the only analyst for the fund...so I have to be involved...and to also use the word bandwidth (the Partner likes to keep the conversations light and easy going so I thought I would throw a little humor in there). Well, he response was to "run with it" and to get back to him early in the week. What does that mean for me?? I have no clue...I suppose I will figure that out on Monday, but my point is sometimes just offering to help can have positives outcomes.
Try and be involved in the every aspect you can and ask questions. Let them know that you are willing to do whatever they need and that you appreciate the opportunity and that you hope you can learn a little bit about the modeling aspect if you have the chance.
Sorry there are no specific tasks listed but it just depends. When I interned at a small PE firm when I was in school I just did everything they needed. I spent a lot of time doing database stuff but I saw the value in doing it because the Managing Partner that brought me on focused solely on sourcing deals, so that database was quite literally his lifeline. It was boring work for the most part, but it was a "big" responsibility that he gave control of to me...also, I learned about a lot of firms that I didn't know existed and was able to reach out to them when looking for a FT job.
If I was going to get more specific I would say to get involved in any deals they are working on so you get to see how things sort of unfold as the process moves along.
I am sure some other members will have some suggestions. Also, ignore ricochetX. Good luck.
Regards
Sorry, double post.
Regards
hahahahaha i wanted to intern at some shop, and this is EXACTLY what they made me do! I never came back after the first day
Fuck you, dude. The only thing useful about your posts are that they bump this topic to the top.
Does anyone not retarded want to jump in? I would appreciate it.
Haha that sounds good for you, although I have no idea what it means either... good luck. Thanks for providing your experience; I find that interesting to read about.
I'm pretty new to finance so I know that I'll be doing grunt work like every intern does but I want to make sure that I get exposed to more substantive things like modeling and general deal experience (and other things that remain unknown to me).
I think its important that you have the right attitude as an intern (as you do) because a lot of people will get disappointed that they aren't doing cool/fun/exciting things. Internships are really just a way to express your interest in an industry and prove you have what it takes to make it. Then, you just hope that you get exposed to some of the more fun and/or exciting aspects...whatever those might be for that particular fund.
Also double check everything. If you are working on presentations, make sure you print the stuff out before you pass it on and read through it. You will be surprised at the oversights you will find just by looking at something on paper, as opposed to a screen. Also spell check your Excel work. Seems like a "no brainer" but I only used Excel sparingly before starting FT and if you get a chance to build out some models you will see you input a lot of text, not just digits, and it is easy to misspell things and not catch them.
Other than that, prioritize and take notes. Write down instructions and tips as someone is giving you something to do. I try and rotate through everything on my plate everyday. Even if I can't finish it or I don't really have time to get anything done on it, I will often just open up the file and look over what I did. This gives me a mental note of where I left off and what I still have to do and it also gives me a chance to check out my work and possibly find stupid mistakes that are easier to catch after you walk away from something and come back to review it.
Hopefully you can get involved with presentations they are making/creating so you get more exposure to Power Point which would be useful. You can try to get involved with investor relations a bit and help with updates they will send out on portfolio companies. Other than anything you can spin into a good bullet point on your resume is going to be good.
Regards
while ricochet is a d-bag, the reality of the situation is that junior people in private equity do indeed do that type of work. junior people include those who have already done banking stints, succeeded, and chosen to join funds with a sourcing-intensive business model. guess what the harvard summa cum laude's at advent and summit are doing... data entry and cold calling.
Yeah, but the OP was asking for what type of work he should try to get involved in. Everybody knows you do crappy, mostly meaningless work at the junior levels and at sourcing fims, especially internships at either.
Regards
I am currently interning at an REPE fund so it might be different from traditional PE.
Over the past month my duties include: -built/updated dcf/irr models, though models are small with somewhat simplified assumptions, it's definitely good learning experience -prepared investment committee presentations for live deals, including digging data from existing research reports/data sheets, which gives me a good grasp of the deal -looked for comps, less fun and more tedious but everyone goes through this from time to time -research on companies/countries
But as above mentioned, modeling is a fairly small part of the deal and will not be built by an intern who hasn't really gone through formal trainings (other than this you have sourcing, dd, deal structuring, i-comm, post-acquisition asset management...etc), but you could always build a model yourself and hand it in to your bosses just to impress them.
Good answer. May I ask you what kind of formal training for modeling? Do you mean companies providing in-house training?
Thanks,
Thanks a lot for the comments, guys. I appreciate them.
What questions to expect about PE internship? (Originally Posted: 06/12/2017)
I'm currently working in PE for my sophomore year internship. What specific questions will I likely get asked in banking interviews about my PE experience? If you've done banking interviews before, what would you ask me?
bump
I'm on the same boat with the sophomore year PE internship, expect to be asked about the deals you've worked on, walk me through an LBO, what you learned, why PE and not IB. Definitely questions along those lines.
TheEmperor, I had a PE internship my sophomore year as well. The questions you are asked will depend entirely on your experience and what is listed on your resume. My experience was mostly managing the PE shop's CRM (read: typing in contact info from business owners that the partners met at various trade shows) and assisting with putting together financials for a portfolio company. That is all I had on my resume, and that is all I was asked about.
That being said, you still need to be able to answer LBO questions for ib interviews. These will be asked regardless of where you interned your sophomore year.
I would second the above that it completely depends what you have listed for the experience on your resume.
In general (besides all of the standard ib interview questions), I would be ready to talk about any deals you worked on, your daily responsibilities, transferable skills, and some high level details about the fund (e.g. deal size, industry focus, any other specific investment criteria).
What do summer interns at PE do? (Originally Posted: 03/28/2011)
I recently cold-called a boutique PE firm about a summer internship. He said they haven't had an intern in a while and they usually don't have one, but I can send over my resume and "thoughts on what to do" during my internship. Can anyone offer any advice on what to put down? I'm not so sure to over-reach and list a bunch of things they can't provide within an internship timeframe. Thanks in advance.
What is your background educationally and prior jobs?
I currently work in an industry risk management group in a BB but am looking to transition to FO, buy-side preferably. I know this in itself is a stretch which is why I'm cold calling aggressively. I will attend a MBA business schools">M7 business school this fall (admitted to a couple), so I'm playing up on that aspect.
You would probably do lots of research - on industries, companies, people. You could keep track of different deals that the fund comes across - keep a log of industry, financials, investment amount, etc. Maybe write ups of pros/cons of investment opportunities. Filing, scheduling, note taking.
Tasks of Summer PE Analyst as an undergrad (Originally Posted: 03/06/2018)
Hello Monkeys, I am a current penultimate-year undergrad who has a Private Equity internship this summer. Since last summer I had an internship that wasn't very challenging since my superiors didn't have enough time to teach me what I didn't know, I was hoping to learn by myself how to do analysts work. As someone who wants real responsibilities in an Incoming Summer Private Equity Analyst role, how would you advise me to prepare?
I've read all BIWS manuals, but doubt that is enough to master Financial Modelling. How can I master it? Besides Modelling, what else should I try to learn?
Have you read all the BIWS stuff or have you actually done their modeling programs? It's very different reading about it and actually doing it yourself in terms of how well you will learn and master it.
I read the Valuation, Accounting (also read others), DCF and LBO guides of BIWS, but barely feel like an expert. It helps me fare well in interviews, but this one was 100% fit. Do you advise me to purchase a program? Which one? Are there any other methods?
And should I only learn how to model?
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