I am looking for more information regarding the interview process of H&F in London.
How many rounds? (more or less)
Type of interviews? (case based, consulting style?)
What to expect?
If anyone could add color it would be highly appreciated
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Hey Arsene Lupin III, I'm the WSO Monkey Bot and I'm here since nobody responded to your topic! Bummer...could just be unlucky but one of these topics will help shed some light:
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I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.
This is from 3 years ago but I'd be surprised if the interview process changed. Before I dive into that, bear in mind: this is one of the best investors out there. Since inception, I think they made around 30% aggregate gross IRR for their investors via a strategy that favours deep, deep diligence and taking your time. For an associate stint, you'll likely do 1, maybe 2 deals. More here: https://www.sers.pa.gov/pdf/Investments/Investment%20Materials/Hellman-…
Now, interview. About 3-4 rounds. The first 2 ones are essentially fit/ technical, with a strong consulting skew, i.e. typical 30-40 min cases of either estimating a market size, finding out what drives margin compression in a business, proposing a pricing strategy, etc. Case in Point should be more than enough for that. Round 3 was a modelling test that takes a whole day in the office: you start at like 8-9, have 3 hours to build a model from scratch and draw up a thesis based on a CIM, then you do the rounds with principals arguing for your deal. Last round is meeting Patrick Healy who, while being CEO of the firm, is actually based in London (or was back then).
It's long and intense, and people's personalities vary. And they work you to the bone, as they should I guess. You won't find a better investor on the street than these guys, at least at large cap level.
Good luck!
Plus (in case it wasn't obvious), because H&F write only big cheques the AuM / partner ratio is greater than most other firms. This naturally means that the carry / partner ratio is similarly high, so if you can hang on it's a golden ticket.
Absolutely. It's worth mentioning though that few are offered to stay post the associate stint. In London I think there's just one director who moved up the ranks (talking investment team, not value creation). Even so, exit opportunities are pretty amazing even as an associate.
You said they are one of the best investors “at least in large cap”. Who do you consider being on par regarding performance if you move more downmarket?
Just follow the returns. The issue is the more downmarket you go, the more nuanced the discussion becomes due to all the niches that come up (geography & sector specialization being the most often met ways to slice the market). Anecdotally, Inflexion is probably the best tech MM investor in W Europe with a solid operational playbook developed over the years, it's worth looking into them since they've been in the market for 20+ years and delivered top quartile returns almost every fund. In a similar though less techy vein there's Waterland, focused on BeNeLux mainly (and DACH sometimes).
I'm sure there's more, but again it's not as simple as in large cap where discerning clearly between winners and losers is a more direct process (i.e. if you do large cap, you cover pretty much the same geos, maybe differentiate on sector and a little on strategy i.e. growth vs. value).
What is their value creation team doing? Are they leading commercial DD pre-deal, or just post-deal portfolio work?
Why is their office in such a weird location?
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