PE Recruiting in London

I am an incoming analyst at a Tier 1 EB in London and am wondering how I should approach PE recruiting in my first year. Do I start reaching out to HHs 3-4 months into the job or wait until they approach me? Also, how realistic is it to set my sights on MFs (BX, KKR, Carlyle)? I know PE recruiting in UK is not as structured as US, so there is no defined timeline and profiles that are widely known to be favoured upon by MFs. I also ran a LinkedIn search and it seems that EB analysts here place mostly into Upper MM and are not as common in MFs, unlike the US. What should I do?

 

I have met with most headhunters within nearly 12 months of starting my analyst stint. I would say that most were very surprised by such an early outreach when I told them I was only looking to move after 2 years of my program are over. PE recruitment in London is very ad-hoc in nature and unstructured even for the KKR, Blackstone, Carlyle and Bain type of firms so take your time and make contact at the end of your first year.

Difficult to pinpoint a typical profile but definitely language requirement is a must for a lot of funds. Given a kid between GS and BAML, funds would always pick BAML if he can speak an extra European language over the GS British one. It's probably more important than you realise at this stage.

 

From my experience of talking to headhunters and networking with PE people, outside GS/MS/JPM there is virtually no difference in exit opps as it is made out to be. I'm at Laz/Roths and I think the other US EBs compete quite well with us in sending kids to the buyside (traditional PE), even the ones usually bashed on this site like Greenhill.

If you want distressed investing, obviously go with RX shops, headhunters explicitly mention the top 3 being PJT/Laz/HL, or lev fin groups, notably JPM/CS.

HF takes people from all background so hard to say.

 

I’ll take the 3 you mentioned and answer on them.

Apollo: these guys have an explicit ppt slide in Apollo format on recruitment that headhunters have detailing target groups and banks, if I remember correctly lev fin, fig, consumer, etc at jpm gs ms cs. So EBs do not represent here.

BX: not sure on these guys policy but I’ve met a few PJT/BX people transferring over. Lazard and Rothschild definitely can interview, as I’ve been sent opportunity from them.

Carlyle: I’ve met Lazard people here and headhunters do take people from other EBs to interview rounds.

 
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To be honest I'm not entirely sure. But remember that buyside recruiting is extremely selective and depends on a lot of luck. It kinda makes getting into IBD look like a walk in the park in comparison.

Even in the biggest places like Blackstone for example, the intake each year is around 2-3 people in London. Assuming 10 MFs, there are 20-30 slots to go around. BB analysts class is around 70 per year, EBs ranging from 4 to 15, Laz/Roths around 40-50. There's also a greater nuisance that PE recruits 2nd year analyst to 2nd year associate in London as well (i.e. spanning 4-5 classes). This is just to demonstrate that the maths does not add up for everyone to have a good or even decent exit, let alone top tier.

 

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