Private Equity and Recessions Private equity companies make money in a recession by buying companies that are deeply undervalued and turning them around for a profit once the status quo normalizes. During a recession, many companies struggle to stay afloat and may be forced to sell assets, segments, or even the entire business at a discounted price. Further, pressure given the current economic environment (combined with a higher cost of debt) leads to companies also facing maturity risk with any long-term debt coming due. With blood in the water, private equity firms that are well-capitalized ..read more

Once you have determined to pursue a career in private equity, it can be daunting to figure out which type of fund to work for. In this post, we outline the major ways to categorize PE funds to help determine which segment of the market is most attractive to you. We will explore the differences between buyout, growth, and VC funds. In subsequent posts, we’ll look at different sector- and strategy-specific funds, as well as how the size of the fund impacts the type of investments it does. At the highest level, PE funds can be further broken down by which stage of a company’s life cycle they inv ..read more

When I first discovered OfficeHours, I had already gone through many interview processes and was getting to the final rounds but struggling to close and win an offer. I even considered giving up until I received an inbound from the team, curious but rather skeptical about what value they could really add, I agreed to take a call. That first time I spoke with Rohit and Asif, I could tell that these guys knew what they were doing and were going to be my allies in an industry that has been notoriously difficult to navigate and break into. Rohit and Asif did a great job of listening to my story an ..read more

When I was getting into finance, I had no idea what I was really getting into. An individual that genuinely helped me out quite a bit was an associate I met during training. This associate had lateralled in from another larger buyout shop and had started a month or so ahead of the other associates (probably something to do with the time she left the prior shop and the time she was joining this one). Not only were her modeling skills up-to-par but because she had experience being a former associate (I think it was only ~1 year experience), she came in basically running circles around everyone e ..read more

We had a mentee evaluating pursuing an analyst role in investment banking or going down the management consultant path — when asked what she wanted to do more long-term, private equity came up. The reality is, other than large, large megafunds (Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle, KKR, even TPG now has been known to be looking at hiring consultants) — you can get into a proper upper-middle-market PE shop quite nicely from management consulting and investment banking alike. Consulting tends to be the less painful way to get there, so why not evaluate that option? Consultants are tasked on a projec ..read more

You’ve received a buyside job offer – congrats! It may feel like the hard work is done, but choosing which offer to accept is arguably one of the most important parts of the overall recruiting process. Far too often we see candidates jumping at accepting their first offer, a strategy which they often ultimately regret in the future. It’s extremely valuable to be intentional about all of your career decisions, so make sure that you know your worth and only accept an offer if it’s the right next step toward achieving your long-term goals. Picking an Offer – First PE Job If you have just finished ..read more