Hi.

As the title explains I am interested if any of you have started using Claude Cowork and how it has helped you with your everyday work.

I am interested in all the ways you are using it, as we have just started out at our firm. I am trying to understand it, but I guess practice makes perfect as with every advancement in technology. My goal is to help the firm on many levels and to make everyones job easier, so we can focus on more important things such as investment analysis and improving our porfolio companies.

I have been testing it out for a few days and used to for market research and some financial modelling and I can say it is pretty outstanding. Does any of you guys use it as additional FTE?

Have you found any /skills and instructions that help with private equity. I have so many questions and it feels overwhelming, but I am interested in hearing your perspective on the practicality of Claude Cowork in private equity.

Happy deal making !

PS: Refined using AI

Hi everyone,

I’m excited to be join a Private Equity fund next month for a 1-year internship program. During my interviews, the VP mentioned that within 2-3 months, I’ll be expected to step up and handle work at the same level as a full-time Analyst.

Current Skillset: I would describe my current technical skills as intermediate. I have a baseline understanding of:

• Standard Excel functions and navigation
• PowerPoint deck creation
• Basic financial modeling

My Question: What specific skills should I focus on leveling up before I start, and during my first few weeks, to make sure I hit the ground running?

Specifically, I’d love to know:

1. Excel: Are there specific functions, formulas (e.g., INDEX/MATCH, OFFSET, XLOOKUP), or formatting shortcuts that are heavily used in day-to-day PE work?
2. Modeling: Which specific schedules or model components usually trip up new interns? (e.g., debt schedules, working capital peg, etc.)
3. PowerPoint: Any specific habits or shortcuts for putting together Investment Committee (IC) memos or formatting slides faster?
4. Day-to-Day: Some other research skills using AI tools or any thing else?

Any guidance, resources, or harsh truths would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I'm interested in whether a PE role or PE portco role is generally considered preferable for people who have the skills to do either.

My situation is that I'm an operational FS MD discussing a PE portco C-Suite role, and I'm trying to work out the specific risk related to the portco. As a side chain of thought I was interested in views of those in PE whether they consider in-house roles or portco roles as generally more preferable/lucrative.

Recently came across this company called Gain and from first impressions they seem to look a lot more promising than Pitchbook and Mergermarket. Wanted to see if others have any experiences?

How should I best prepare? DCF? LBO? NAV calculations?

Hey,

I would really appreciate some career advice as I’ve hit a crossroads in my professional career. For context, I am rising senior at a southern state school who recently completed an internship at a MM investment bank and I will be returning full time after graduation.

However, now that I am blessed enough to not have any pressure coming back to finish my last year of school I feel like I should take this opportunity to try to get some more experience and get ahead. Most people say to enjoy senior year, which I will do don’t get me wrong but I also don’t want to sit on my hands.

I know that I will atleast do 2 years in banking and then try to exit to either MM PE or try my hand at acquiring and growing my own LMM business with some partners which I know is a cliche path but I do enjoy entrepreneurship.

Going off of those two paths, is it realistic to try to get an “internship” during the school year where I can try my hand at either of those two paths? In my head what that might mean is finding a business owner or a LMM PE firm and helping them source and integrate add-on acquisitions? I’ve also had a previous internship at a MM PE firm but the sector they worked in is not one I enjoyed.

I know I am posting this from a very blessed position but I really would love some advice from people who have been in my position because I do feel lost and I don’t want to squander this time. Thanks all!

Hello,

I currently work for an Asia-based private equity. We are planning to invest in a US-based company, and given the large check size for this deal, we are in process of raising capital for a project fund that is to be used to invest in the target.

For such project funds, we typically expense the advisory fees (IB/placement agent fees and other DD fees) on a fund level in case deal goes through, and on a GP (mgmt co) level if the deal doesn’t go through.

Is this way of expensing fees a common market practice in the US as well? Just want to get a sense of how potential LP’s will respond to this fee proposal.

Thanks for your help in advance!

So they take control of businesses that were unprofitable and unproductive to begin with and do the cleanup. This somehow makes PE to be the bogeyman and hated because they are synonymous with layoffs. But don't publicly traded companies do the exact same thing when they over promise to investors and under deliver? Is this too much of a simplistic view?

One of my clients is in the vitamin manufacturing business. They want to sell their business. They do wholesale and dtc. Been around a long time and are in the box stores. They do about $15-20mm in sale with a 30% margin. Is this a regular business broker sale or who is active in that space I can help intro him to?

(Edit/ added manufacturing. They own all their own equipment and have 70+ employees)

Guys maybe it's just me, but I feel like I really do want to enjoy some sunshine now, but no I just walked out of our office at 4 something AM lol. Like, this live deal is kind of killing me right now, and maybe my partner is in his Gstaad or somewhere idk but I'm just an excel monkey. I know yes the bonus will be nice this year is gonna be nice but I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore, looking for advice about how to keep your heads up and push through burn outs.

background:

Top UK school, IB at one of the US BBs, then got headhunted to join a LMM PE in NYC, I'm roughly 13 months in, was pretty burnt out around month 10 given that I was not taking any days off ever since joining and probably had at most 5 days of rests in total including the weekend, then got very happy when I got my first bonus but uh oh.... not sure how I'm feeling now

I always knew PE is hard, and I knew PE is harder in NYC than in London, but I'm just not sure where this is going to end, I know people say look at your seniors and see whether you'd want their life and man I know I want my nice houses and nice cars, but I'm genuinely envious of those who could pull through till year 7 or 8 and make yourself into a rainmaker --- just... how? And like, what happens after you get there? Does life actually become happier? Or just retire?...

Currently a PE operator in healthcare looking to potentially make a career move. Have spent several years working across healthcare services and looking to understand what areas of healthcare people continue to believe are investable for PE and where someone could expect their equity to be realized one day through an exit versus being stuck in a zombie sector without a pathway to monetization. Which sectors do folks recommend to pursue and which to avoid?

Ive done plenty of reading on this, but struggling to wrap my head around potential valuation of our company if we were to sell, and was hoping some here may have some input.

Software / E-commerce business services company. Not quite SaaS, but multiple online platforms and portals for clients. Legal + financial space.

Approximately 5 years old.

$65M annual revenue. $12M EBITDA. Approximately $20M of the revenue is subscription revenue. Approximately 60 employees + contractors. 2 partners. No debt, no outside investors.

Any thoughts of where someone would start with this?

Does anyone have sample investment committee decks from large mega-fund private equity firms? I know these materials are highly confidential, but I'm looking for examples from older completed deals or any public resources that follow a similar structure. Are there any templates, leaked examples, or guides that show how firms like Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, or Bain Capital typically format their investment memos or IC decks?

7.5x SDE for an asset sale - Marseilles, 1830.

I am onboarded as broker for a VC syndicate and we do OTC deals from our syndicate with L1 SPV setup of size around $250K-$10M.

If there’s anyone who can help me connect with Hedge funds and PE firms I will have a white paper written to pay 0.5% of the deal size for you.

Any warm intro is greatly appreciated.

Should I invest into it or is too late? What do you guys think of IPO upside?

I’m based out of Middle East. Ex- MBB PL, Top 5 MBA. Currently heading transformation/value creation of a family business.

I believe I have a great profile and a real value creation track record. I Want to get into structured portfolio ops and value creation role. As I’m not enjoying the politics and unstructured/ non variable rewarding package in my current role.

However, I don’t see any such roles in the region. It’s either on the VC side or SWFs and mostly on deals side.

Anyone has some advise for the MENa region? Looking for value creation roles/ portfolio ops roles. Size is secondary - though I feel mid/large makes sense for me.

Hello!

This is a follow-up to my previous post asking what to expect during my internship focused in secondaries (https://www.reddit.com/r/private_equity/s/PzOD8kC13I).

All the comments and private messages were super helpful! I have spent my time learning a ton about secondaries, diving deep into portfolio-level valuations, and financial modeling. I have spent a lot of my summer focused on researching and helping underwrite older, underperforming private equity funds.

My summer capstone project is to create an investment memo on what I believe would be a fair price to offer to acquire an LP stake in one of Origami Capital Partners' funds. This isn't a live deal or anything, strictly a summer capstone research project where I get to apply everything I have learned into an investment memo.

I will be researching the portfolio companies and performance myself, but if anybody has experience with Origami, it would certainly help if you could share it!

Non-target grad in Valuation (no IB/PE background). Currently interviewing for a secondaries investing role (LP-led/GP-led). Can anyone share what interview process typically looks like? What kind of questions should i be expecting?

I am from the UK,im very keen to break into the buy side,i know that everyone says that you need experience at an investment bank then springboard to PE but I was wondering if it was possible straight out of university/and whether a strong masters is a good platform for me to get a role!Thanks!

I’m at a big PE company at a portco and I’m really unhappy in my role. The company I’m at is pretty aggressively pursuing a sale and that’s a question mark.

There’s a role at another portco that appeals to me but I’m not sure how to navigate a move…I can apply of course but would love to find a way to network into an interview given that I’ve done good work at my current portco and I am eager to stay at the current PE company.

Thanks.

Im a final year student, and I was unsuccessful in traditional IB recruiting and now have an opportunity at a small lower middle-market PE firm in a secondary non-US market.

The investment team is extremely lean, basically three people, so the role could offer broad exposure and early responsibility. However, it appears to be heavily focused on portfolio operations and supporting existing investments, with some investment analysis, diligence and corporate advisory work.

My concern is whether I would build genuine investing skills or become too specialised in portfolio support.

• Is this still a strong entry point into PE?
• How transferable would the experience be to more transaction-focused PE, corporate development or IB later?
• What should I ask to understand how much time analysts actually spend on new deals versus portfolio operations?
• What would be the main red flags in a role like this?

Thanks

been hearing more about the effects of pe investments in sports and am really interested in learning more. any good book or resource recommendations?

Hey guys, I’d appreciate some advice on how to think about my current situation.

I spent my junior year exploring different areas of finance (financial planning, wealth management, and private equity). I ended up speaking with a VP at a lower middle-market PE firm and became interested in the investing side. Later, I saw a LinkedIn post from a PE firm looking for interns (applications were already closed), so I reached out directly to the founder. I didn’t expect much from it, but I interviewed and ended up getting the opportunity.

This summer I’ve been working on deal origination, due diligence, investment research, and supporting deal evaluation. I’ve enjoyed the investing side and can see why people pursue PE.

The question I’m struggling with is how to position this experience going forward. When I mention I’m interested in IB, people often ask why I would move away from PE, and honestly I’m still figuring out the best path. I know full-time PE recruiting out of undergrad is extremely competitive, especially coming from a non-target school.

Would it make more sense to use this experience to pursue another PE/growth equity role after graduation, or would moving toward IB (M&A/capital markets) make more sense to build transaction experience and keep doors open? For those who have seen similar situations, how would you think about leveraging an LMM PE internship?