PE Owned Company - FP&A

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Thanks for your reply. The position would be one that had direct contact with the PE guys. As I said, the salary makes it tempting as I am sure they are trying to make up for lack of benefits. To your point though, it is hard to get comfortable wit no 401k or bonus. Just a weird concept that frankly I havent heard too much of.

Anyone have any other thoughts?

Completely understand your first point. But would you not say that specific PE firms have their own preferred finance guys when they take over ownership?

Also, in regards to benefits.. is no 401k or bonus common? I guess the no 401k makes sense from a cutting cost standpoint. Anything I can negotiate here?

Ignoring the lack of benefits because that just seems weird... I think the desirability of this type of role depends on your ambition level. If you want to learn through your interactions with the sponsor (e.g. increased reporting and scrutiny) and potentially dealing with a high quality CFO, this could be a good opportunity and open doors for you in the future. However, I have found the FP&A teams at our port cos. tend to see quite a bit of turnover post-acquisition because the team usually realizes how much easier life was working for a family-owned business and the pay was usually the same or better because we (the sponsor) have set the bonuses based on a higher performance benchmark.

Iterating somewhat Rusty said the sponsor is and should only be interested in getting top tier results out of its port co's. Therefore usually structure the remuneration in such a way that it is linked to performance.

I find the lack of bonus etc very odd, unless the compensation is so high that it negates a bonus (although the fact you are bringing up no bonus suggests to me this isn't the case) I would not take the position. But that's merely on the fact that I believe in getting paid what I am worth at least as far as getting paid what you are worth working for someone else - by definition you can't be paid your explicit value but that's another point entirely.

Based on the fact you are concerned about loosing your job in 3 years I would guess you are of an age / period in your life that you are looking to settle down? I may be wrong, but if that is the case I would suggest that moving to a role to purely learn wouldn't be the correct play and thus you should be comfortable with the remuneration and bonus packages as well. If however, you are more interested in learning and developing your skill set then I would try gauge how good the management team and the quality of your peers will be.

Best of luck

Couple points, they are including what would have been the bonus in the salary amount.. I have not come across this very much but guess I would be fine with the additional salary (rather than bonus). Still no 401k which even if they try to factor into salary, it makes me uncomfortable why this isnt offered.

Also, some of you guys have mentioned it being a great learning opportunity.. how so? Just b/c you get to work with the PE guys and a "high quality" CFO? I imagine that there would be demand for growth at a very quick pace. That being said I want to make sure I am compensated accordingly.

Also, once you have worked for a PE portfolio company and that stint is up, are you now faced with a stigma that you are a PE portfolio co. guy for life? I just know that some of the CFOs I see at these companies will work for 3-5 years at one and then pack up and go work for another. Seems like a nomad lifestlye, althought I am sure they are paid accordingly.