I may write something in January.

I mostly agree with your last statement. One thing to note is that if the PE market experiences a short-term volatility (as seen in Q1 and Q2 of 2020), GP-led secondaries market tends to thrive as sponsors would want to hold on to a well-perfoming asset via a continuation vehicle instead of attempting to sell the company via M&A and IPO. However, I don’t know what to make of the current environment.

Speaking of the market trend and its impact to PE, do you plan to write one in the near future?

This article was written in 2020, so it’s possible the market has changed over the ~2 years since then, but I don’t think that has shifted any of the fundamentals. Maybe it is more of a growing industry now, but PE funds of funds are still worse than direct PE investing for most people in terms of careers and exit opportunities. Also, the secondaries market tends to lag the direct PE market… so if direct PE firms are not doing so well right now due to inflation/rising rates/recession/energy/supply chains/everything else, eventually it will spread to the secondaries as well.

If you can win a pre-MBA IB role, that is almost always better than paying for and attending a top MBA program to get in. BNP is not the best firm for exits into PE, but if you work in M&A there, you should be able to find something. So that seems like a better plan than applying to MBA programs to get into IB just so you can recruit for PE.

Hi Brian, Thank you very much for your articles it has always been very insightful. I am currently working at a prominent SWF in the middle east. I am trying to eventually move to a mid-market buyout fund in Asia in the long run. However, currently what i’m doing here is mostly co-investments and secondary single-asset transactions etc. I am currently contemplating an MBA at Harvard/Wharton/Columbia/Chicago next and head back to IB before going back to the proper direct buyout game. But recently I also got an offer for BNP Paribas M&A team. Would really love to hear your advice as I thought that a good MBA can help me make partner level in the very long run…

I don’t think there’s as much pigeonholing for IR roles at these firms. It’s more of an issue for investment analyst / deal execution roles, where a lot of traditional PE firms won’t take you seriously with only PE FoF experience.

With IR experience, you can usually move around more easily because they assume that IR at one type of firm is similar to IR anywhere else.

So if you win this role, I would recommend taking it and then deciding if you want to move to a different type of IR role later.

I haven’t researched the issue enough to say much, sorry. I assume secondary/co-investment roles will fare better, but I can’t say by how much.