Senior Associate Comp at SWF in the Middle East
Hi Everyone,
I am currently at the third round of interviews with a middle eastern SWF for a Senior Associate role in their PE team. Does anyone know what should I expect in terms of compensation and exit opportunities in Europe?
If for some reason you're not comfortable sharing here, you can send me a DM. Thank you in advance.
Interested
Bump
How much direct investing are you doing? If it's a SWF where they do mostly direct, then ~$250K+ USD for Sr. Assoc seems fine, maybe less if you're only doing co-investments (my reference points mostly coinvest and pension funds, but imo I think it should be similar).
@chihayafull, thanks for the reply!
It's QIA, they are very secretive about their PE operations, but they do both direct and co-investment deals.
Bump
If you're going to move to the Middle East (bit unclear from your topic title), I've seen friends encountering some difficulty when trying to lateral back to their home countries into more traditional GPs at a similar seniority level - this for APAC so not sure if it's the same situation in Europe.
Amazing benefits while you're in the Middle East though (housing, transportation etc)
Thanks for the reply!
Yes, sorry. The position would be based in the middle east.
Just curious, it seems like people who work for the Canadian Pension funds tend to have pretty strong exits at all levels.
Anyone have any idea why the discrepancy between Middle East SWF and Canadian Pensions have such disparate outcomes?
Large developed world (Australia, Singapore, Europe, North American etc) pension funds / SWFs are generally institutionally run and staffed with competent people. Middle Eastern SWFs range in quality from the same as developed world pension funds to political play things of monarchs, staffed with a significant portion of locals who aren't competent and haven't had to earn their position compared to expats. This can seriously taint the perception of them as a whole.
General feedback I've heard tends to be Canadian pensions are more sophisticated (more structured IC processes / leaders with stronger pedigree) and have proven track record in leading sizeable directs, while their ME peers have lagged in this regard.
You see CPPIB doing this all the time, versus say a QIA/ADIA. Might not be entirely true but impressions matter in the recruiting game..
Makes sense my UMM firm has hired a couple people from the Canadian pensions at the mid-senior level on our PE and real assets teams and they are reportedly really, really good.
Seems like they were able to take leadership roles earlier so seem to be sourcing machines / know how to handle a process compared to some of the megafund hires at that level. Arguably the Canadian pension hires are moving up due to strong performance at their prior shops while the megafund hires might be moving down due to weaker performance so that may play a factor as well.
We have no hires in US from SWFs so no point of comparison.
Bottom line: for a Senior associate role in a top SWF based in the Middle East I should expect over $250k base comp including benefits (housing, transportation, etc.) and troublesome exit.
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