Want to work in private equity? Join the back of the queue. The buy-side has become the most attractive career path for junior bankers in recent years, and private equity companies have their pick of who they hire.
The fact is that even with two years at bulge bracket investment bank or top consultancy you have a 10% chance of your application making it through the first filtering stage and a 2% chance of getting an interview.
But in the past few weeks private equity firms have been welcoming fresh new recruits into the fold. Who has made it in the class of 2016? Here’s our selection of new private equity recruits who have made the switch from either investment banking or consultancy.
Jaroslav Valiukevic, Novator Partners, London
Jaroslav joined special situations private equity firm Novator Partner in London earlier this month after just under a year at Morgan Stanley, where he focused on media and communications investment banking. Telecommunications is one of the Novator’s areas of specialism. He moved to Morgan Stanley in November last year after a spending over a year at Nomura, but started out working as a corporate finance analyst at Orion Securities in Lithuania. His London investment banking career started in July 2014, after studying an MSc Finance at Imperial College.
Knut Kirchoff, Blackstone, New York
Knut majored in accounting and finance at Boston School of Management and made it into Citi’s leveraged finance division after a summer internship in 2013. He has take a fairly conventional route into private equity – leveraged finance is a happy hunting ground for most PE firms, and he departed Citi after exactly two years as an analyst.
Tristan Dunn, Silverlake Partners, London
Tristan has both a first class undergraduate degree in Economics from Cambridge University and a Masters in the same subject funded by the Glynn Jones Scholarship. He interned at Deutsche Bank in the summer of 2014, but opted to join Mckinsey & Co as a business analyst. He joined Silverlake Partners, which focuses on tech investments, after two years in consulting.
Kelsey Hilbrich, Blackstone, New York
Kelsey is another graduate from a top university, graduating summa cum laude in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania – Wharton. After interning at J.P. Morgan in 2013, she instead joined Goldman Sachs’ financial institutions group (another popular choice for PE funds) in July 2014. She spent two years at Goldman before joining Blackstone this summer.
Thomas Sineau, REV.VC, London
Thomas wracked up a lot of internship experience before taking a full-time investment banking role – long-term internships in France at BNP Paribas in both trade finance and leveraged finance and six months at Credit Agricole. He also spent the summer of 2015 in Citi’s IBD in London. However, his full-time role at Deutsche Bank, which he started in July 2015, has been relatively short-lived. PE firms are increasingly targeting analysts at an early stage of their career and Thomas joined tech investment firm REV.VC earlier this month. He has two Masters degrees in finance from the Université Paris Dauphine – one in general finance and the other in investment banking.
Slava Mikhaylov, Verno Capital, Moscow/Dubai
Slava has both maths and economics Olympiads under his belt in Russia, and spent nearly two years working in long-term internships at Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas in Moscow. However, for the past 10 months, he’s been employed by BNP Paribas in London, focusing on EU gas and renewables M&A. After a relatively short time in investment banking, he’s switched across to Verno Capital in Moscow, advising sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Development Company on private equity investments in Russia.
Julio Utrera García de Salazar, Anacap Partners, London
Julio left J.P. Morgan’s investment banking division after two years to join Anacap this summer. Before joining J.P. Morgan he also interned at Morgan Stanley and Santander. He has the CFA Level I, numerous ‘academic excellence’ scholarships and a degree in Business Administration from CUNEF.
Kenneth Anhalt, Bain Capital, Boston
Bain & Company has no links to Bain Capital, but Kenneth has moved between the two nonetheless. Kenneth spent two years as an associate consultant at Bain & Co in New York – having interned there in 2013. He moved across to Bain Capital during the summer. He’s a graduate from Princeton and has a B.A. in Economics.
Luca Cat Berro, Blackstone, London
Luca has just moved to Blackstone from Morgan Stanley, where he worked in its asset management business in London. However, before this he worked in as an investment analyst for Generali in Milan. Luca has a Masters in Finance from Bocconi University, which has been a big feeder into investment banks in the City this year.
Sandro Rizzini Cancarini, Advent International, London
Sandro has a bachelors degree in international management from Bocconi and a Masters degree in International Finance from HEC Paris. He interned at both Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan before deciding to join Credit Suisse in its M&A execution team in London. He joined Advent as an associate earlier this year.
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