The Top Ten Ideal Private Equity & Credit Employers, 2024
Private equity firms have been having a rough time in 2024. Unlike 2023, when one private equity firm ranked in our list of the top 10 Ideal Employers, this year there were none at all. But some people still chose private capital firms - including private equity and private credit - as their Ideal Employers to work for.
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The list below shows which private capital firms ranked top as Ideal Employers among our 8,000 voters in 2024.
The preferred employer in this category was, once again, Blackstone. Blackstone is the biggest alternate asset manager in the world, with more than $1tn in assets under management (AUM). It’s also the most valuable, with a market capitalization of nearly $200bn.
Getting a job at Blackstone is not easy. The last time Blackstone disclosed figures, in 2023, it said it received 67,600 applications for its graduate program despite only having 169 places. This gives its graduate applicants a success ratio of just 0.25%, below Goldman Sachs 0.8%. Hedge fund Citadel had a comparatively generous 0.5% acceptance rate.
Blackstone's $1tn of assets are split relatively equally, with $345bn in private equity, $325bn in real estate, and $355bn in credit and insurance at the end of Q3 this year. It also had a further $83.1bn deployed in "multi-asset investing."
Our respondents said they wanted to work for Blackstone for the existing quality of its workforce, as well as the interesting work it offers. Private equity firms allow professionals to become investors and not just advisors, which is appealing to junior M&A bankers who move into private equity roles.
Second-placed Advent International is much smaller than Blackstone – but that’s because Blackstone is a titan. Advent is still very much a giant, with $94bn in AUM, with 15 offices in 12 countries. The firm also has 412 portfolio companies. Unlike Blackstone, Advent appears to be a pure-play private equity firm, with no additional assets invested in real estate or credit & insurance.
Various firms which ranked highly last year dropped out of our top ten this year. They included Vista Equity Partners and TPG. By comparison, CVC Capital Partners entered the ranking.
Download the full 2024 eFinancialCareers Ideal Employer report here.
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