PE style family office and next career
Hi guys, I'm a 2nd-year analyst working in a family office, managing a family's wealth amounting around USD 2B. We do all kind of investments including LBO, Real estate, Ships, and NPL. And our HQ located in North Asia.(Not Japan) And since we have slightly over ten professionals in the office, I'm engaged in most of the deals.
Anyhow, I 've just heard from my friend, working in BB IBD in wall street, having a 'family office style' working experience would not be appreciated, and it would be extremely diffucult to work in PE or HF, no matter where i'm targeting at(whether it's in HK, or Singapore).
I was shocked bcz what i do in this office, are exactly the same shits that every 2nd-year analyst does in PE or HF- crunching numbers using excel, building CF models for the projections, and making PPTs.
And.. here are my questions.
1) Is it really not appreciated?
2) Assuming the first question's answer is No, would MBA or CFA makeup and help me land a job in PE or HF? (I'm a CFA level 3 candidate and, at the same time, preparing for GMAT)
Thanks
List of family offices here
Your experience is highly valuable on the buy side, hedge funds and smaller PE firms for sure, not sure about BB Investment banks.
You may way want to look in Switzerland there are a ton of family offices
Yeah You'd probably have to go to B school before you went to a BB but idk stranger things have happened.
Why would you want to be banking monkey instead of your gig? It sounds pretty sweet.
People may not appreciate your family office experience, but I definitely appreciate the phrase, "What i do in this office are exactly the same shits that every 2nd-year analyst does."
Not sure what your friend is talking about.
If one can go from a BB IBD to PE, one can certainly go from a PE investing role to PE.
Any type of capital-at-risk investing > IBD.
The BB IBD patch on your arm is a signaling mechanism. Coming from an unknown family office, no one knows what that family office consists of. It could be your uncle managing his 3 rental properties that you so eloquently call a family office investing role. Unless its helping manage the Pritzker Family Fortune (which was recently interviewing for PE associates, FYI), you have zero credibility at t0. Whereas a BB IBD analyst has credibility at t0 since the firm/department/group/posiiton signal. Thats the main difference.
The bigger question is, why would you leave a family office where you're doing PE investing to go to a plain vanilla shop? The people I know that landed in a family office love it and don't intend to leave any time soon. Its an extremely cushy lifestyle, great connections and an opportunity to make substantial amount of money. The flip-side is its a very small team so culture and fit are the #1 concern.
One of the biggest assets you have coming from a family office is the connections. If you can get them to support your move, one of their phone calls will goes MILES AND MILES beyond what an MD at a top BB can get you. These guys actually carry some weight behind them, they are LPs in many PE funds and if they're not, most PE funds would love to do them a favor to hopefully get on their good sides.
I don't necessarily agree with this. At a BB you're working with much larger companies on a much larger scale than at a typical PE firm, let alone a small family shop. I think there is value to that. The skill set is identical at the junior level anyway.
If you learn to work on much larger companies at a BB than one would work on in 99% of PE firms, and you're goal is to work in PE... what benefit is being able to work on large companies (that one wouldn't work on in 99% of PE roles)
I personally disagree. What skills do you get from working on a $30 billion deal that you don't get working on a $1 billion deal? The bigger the firm, the more infrastructure, the more sophisticated their CFO and finance disivion, the more sophisticated their biz. development arm... which translates to the $30 billion company relying on their bankers for far less than their much smaller $1 billion cousin. In my experience, you learn the most by rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself... as opposed to getting a fully (and well) built operating model and merger model from a very competent biz. dev. team, getting presentations and CIM that are everything you need. Its much easier doing the larger deals at an analyst and associate level because everything is tee'd up for you, its strictly copy-paste.
Kravis1a,
I'm receiving an offer from a family office based in Houston, Tx. I've been in PE for 3 years investing in distressed debt and RE. What should I expect to make? base/bonus
I’m curious to know what’s the minimum amount you invest and what’s your annual rate of return?
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