Credit and PE firms continue investor-facing hires in tough market

Sasha Padbidri

22 November 2022•2 min read

From mass layoffs to a shrinking deal pipeline, this year has not been kind to many finance professionals — especially if you work at Credit Suisse (and especially if you work in crypto). The backdrop just isn’t great, particularly with a recession looming on the horizon.

And yet it’s not all doom and gloom. That’s particularly true if you’re good at persuading LPs and other capital partners to put money to work in a volatile market, or that the money they’ve already given your firm is being managed safely.

According to data from recruitment company Jensen Partners (whose founder guested on our podcast a while back) there’s still a liquid market for product specialist professionals in credit, private equity and other areas like hedge funds and infrastructure funds.

As of 3Q22, the firm has tracked 2,647 hires in alternative asset classes (which it defines as credit, private equity, multi-asset and hedge funds alongside other types of investment firms). That surpasses the 2,645 hires the firm tracked in the whole of 2021.

“Our clients see recession as an opportunity to both source top talent and grow existing talent,” she told 9fin. “The hottest roles we are seeing being hired for are professionals that are technical product specialists, able to sit between the investment and distribution teams.”

So far this year, private equity firms lead the pack in Jensen’s data, with 578 hires through the third quarter of 2022. That’s up from 458 during the same period last year.

The firm’s data also shows greater hiring activity among credit firms, despite market volatility. This year, the recruiter tracked 403 credit hires through the third quarter, compared with 144 in the same period last year.

One trend that may continue supporting the growth of such job opportunities is the seemingly unstoppable growth of private equity firms.

Some private equity giants — for example Carlyle, Blackstone and Apollo — have expanded way beyond their roots in the leveraged buyout space to become an increasingly crucial partner in other financing markets.

Earlier this year, the size of Carlyle’s credit business overtook its private equity arm for the first time in 35 years; Blackstone raised a $50bn vehicle for stressed real estate deals in July.

This week, news emerged that Apollo has closed a $2.4bn long-only fund to deploy in dislocated markets, with the firm noting that such opportunities could include helping banks with some of their hung LBO financings. The firm also just acquired Credit Suisse’s securitized products group.

“There’s been a trend of many private equity firms becoming multi-asset firms with product offerings from private equity, private debt, infrastructure, real assets and real estate,” said Jensen. “We will see more of this product platform expansion in 2023.”