Does private equity in real estate, position well for full time I banking recruiting?

Which company has the better "name brand"?

You're pigeon-holed into RE for the rest of your career. Sorry.

On a serious note, I can't answer this question. I'd like to hear more about it though.

that depends on your role. what will you be doing?

if you are doing financial analysis type work, the your skills will def. be relevant to repe funds and ibanks looking to hire for re ib. however, your exp may or may not be marketable for ft ibd jobs in groups outside of re ib, and this will depend on the perspective of the dude thats deciding whether or not to interview you based on the exp you put on your resume at the time. basically, youre going to want to emphasize that you have strong understanding for basic financial metrics, because the same metrics are used when analyzing property and public companies.

if you are not doing financial analysis type work, then your experience wont really be relevant in general.

either way, your going to want to impress that employer and hope for a full time offer there.

this sounds like a cool opportunity in a cool foreign country. LIVE IT UP, and dont stress out about full time offers until senior yr.

I was told I will be working with the associates on evaluating possible investments and writing internal investment memorandums. I think the guy told me I'll also learn the models they use in making decisions (im guessing DCFs, cap rate models, etc). Thanks for the reply!

4 years in PERE....you're going to have a hard time breaking into non-RE IB in my opinion, let alone traditional PE

what about trying to move to an asset-backed strategy PE firm. Some of your RE experience would be useful.

examples?

fortress, but that is a big one. maybe GI Partners, they finally fully exited from Digital Realty Trust recently. They also have a real estate loan business in their portfolio. i'm not too familiar with US MM PE firms with asset-backed strategies, only Europe...

The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button, brought to you by RE Monkey

But in all seriousness, should be fairly doable

Very doable. There are a lot of banks looking for RE guys, experience in REPE would look great.

Sling Shot:

The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button, brought to you by RE Monkey

But in all seriousness, should be fairly doable

Awful movie, but I'm more interested in the analogy.

I think that working in a prestigious/large IB in the RE group would be more beneficial long term, and give me more options overall. You don't agree?

It depends on the company. Why would you want to go the other way?

If you are in asset management (and not acquisitions) on the PE side then I could see why you would want to move over, but creating pitch books and IMs is not that fun.

I could also see the rationale if you are in a BB that is shutting down its REPE biz. Best bet in this situation is the chat with your boss and try to network with the IB group and hope they are understaffed. You should also have a good story as to why you want to become an agent over a principal.

Yeah, and on RE Banker's point, it is unlikely any RE IB is understaffed.

The reason I'm considering switching over is to try expand my skills / experience. At present my job is cool and I make a nice amount of money, but my company has a very specific niche and I fear, to some degree, becoming overly specialized too early in my career. I feel like in RE IB I would be exposed to a wider range of transactions, structures, property types, etc... Also, the firm I work for is not a large, name brand firm... it's a mid to small-size firm that focuses on making investments in China (where I am currently living). We have offices in the US, and our principals come from top firms in ibanking, development and REPE, but the name of my firm doesn't jump off the page at you (on my resume).

Also - the China thing is cool, but at present all my experience is in China and Europe (all 2 years of it). While that's helped me develop some impressive language skills and international expertise, I feel that it might not be for the best long term. I'm worried that after business school people might wonder "does this guy know how things work in the big leagues (US), or is he just a 'cowboy'".

Does this make any sense? Say f I stayed here another two years or so, got promoted again to Sr. Associate (I already got moved from analyst to associate), then left to go to biz school at a top 5 in the US, when i graduated, would I be a candidate for associate at a BB or at top REPE firm in NYC? I'd love to use my china expertise in the future (maybe to raise funds for PE firms focused here), but i don't want to live here forever...

Well BX announced in Aug that they broke ground on a resi scheme in Dalian in a JV with Great Eagle which was their debut investment in the country. I think that these firms need to deploy capital and China is the next logical place so your regional skills would be relevant to the big firms.

Also, if the partners have come from top companies then the name will likely be known within the RE industry.

This feels like a 'grass is always greener' kind of scenario. What you've got actually sounds like a pretty sweet gig, and for b-school, a pretty good differentiator given the international experience.

I'm not in RE, so this is just my opinion based on what is seen in other IB groups and PE, but you shouldn't have any problems getting into RE IB as a BB associate. REPE might be harder just because the market in China and Europe are very different, so there may be a preference for those w/ experience in the US RE mkt. But, w/ another 2 yrs, you'll have, what, 3-4 yrs of buyside RE experience? I think then your profile would be quite attractive then.

i thought it was the other way around, reib guys trying to make the switch into repe.

anyway, the advice here is bang-on, i dont have anything to add except for this: dont look at your international experience as a liability, treat it like an asset. given that the nature of the re business is so location-specific and the fact that china is a growth-economy, i would bet that your skill set will be in demand at a lot of great repe groups looking to expand into asia.

what you do is up to you. but i would recommend you stay put for now, at least for a yr or 2. it sounds like the group you work for is good. in my opinion, it is better to work for a young and growing firm as a young person then to work your way up in a bureaucratic big brand name co. also, i understand that you may be afraid to be pigeon-holed in your niche. but if your niche ends up being rare and in-demand, that makes your expertise more valuable. just something to consider.

i dont know if you have done this already, but make sure you talk to your colleagues and bosses about this stuff.

just curious, why dont you want to live in china?

You guys might think he's crazy, but he makes some very good points. In banking you work on more deals (or you're supposed to). And from talking to a couple people it sounds like the work experience in developing countries isn't as sophisticated.

As of 2010, the highest paid pe guys are still in NY. Maybe in the future that will change, but you know even if investing in CRE in the east becomes the norm, those funds could still be managed by the harvard mbas in NY rather than the barbarians in shanghai (just joking about that last part)

Thanks guys - nice range of perspectives on this one.

And about the question on living in China - I just think (though I'm not sure), that I'll EVENTUALLY want to move back to the States, or go to London. Living in China is cool, especially when you're young (I'm 25), because there's lots of excitement, delicious food, interesting culture, things are extremely cheap so you live like a king, there are many a hot / willing girlie, etc... but I don't know if I could take it forever, even though I speak Chinese. The pollution is terrible, it's strange being a foreigner, Chinese people treat you a certain way, while I have friends here all my best friends live in the states, my parents/siblings are in the states, etc, etc.... I fly back to the US like 5x per year for a week (us expats get extra vacation time to see family), but whenever I'm home I'm always tired, jet-lagged etc.... it's fine for a young man like me, but not an older man, with a family, etc.... I hope I'm always involved with business here, because it's booming, but I'd rather be stationed in NYC raising capital etc for projects/funds over here. I think I'm well positioned for that since I have "on the ground" experience.

Just curious - how did you get your current job out of undergrad in the first place? Seems like its something that wouldn't post at school's recruitment websites... but just something you find out via contacts/word-of-mouth

Also - gotta say - I'm impressed you can speak Chinese (Mandarin). It's not that uncommon for foreigners to speak it and all, but it's just such a different language. Did you pick it up while you were there?

I actually didn't get my job straight out of undergrad. I originally moved to Europe and took a summer analyst position at a very large and well known RE development & PE company (think of Tishman Speyer, Starwood, etc.)... Even though this didn't result in an offer (because it was fall 2008 and the markets were crashing, no one in european real estate was getting offers at the time), it was CRUCIAL in terms of me landing the job here in China. I originally worked through personal network / family connections to get a 6 week internship here in China, but because I actually knew what I was doing to some degree (because of the previous summer analyst gig), they decided (much to my surprise) to give me a full time offer. I think they were also very surprised to see that my Chinese was decent, because many a white guy who has studied Chinese in college can hardly speak 1 sentence correctly - though they tend to write "proficient" on their resumes, which is funny.

which answers your next question - I studied Chinese for 4 years in college (and put in a lot of effort). After that, I was only about 40% of fluent, but it gave me a nice framework of the grammar, basic words, etc, and after living/working in china for two years I'm pretty much there...