Difference between PE and Private M&A Forum

[Anonymous User]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

[Anonymous User]

Private M&A just means you're buying a private company.

Private equity M&A just means a PE firm's involved in the transaction.

[LittleRedCorvette]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

[Anonymous User]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

which one?

[Anonymous User]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

Correct.That said PE guys know what they’re doing. representing strategics is a crap shoot. Half the time you spend a week hounding the client for disclosure schedules to get an email back saying “I don’t really understand this exercise. We gave them all this in diligence, can you just put tell me exactly what I need to do here?” And then they’ll give you a call 24 hours later when they’ve still done nothing saying “The buyer wants to know what the status on schedules are. Can you get these over today? I’m worried we’re falling behind here.”

[Ultramar vistas]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

Correct.That said PE guys know what they’re doing. representing strategics is a crap shoot. Half the time you spend a week hounding the client for disclosure schedules to get an email back saying “I don’t really understand this exercise. We gave them all this in diligence, can you just put tell me exactly what I need to do here?” And then they’ll give you a call 24 hours later when they’ve still done nothing saying “The buyer wants to know what the status on schedules are. Can you get these over today? I’m worried we’re falling behind here.”

I think I have those direct quotes in my inbox somewhere too, that’s way too real.

Agreed with the sentiment 100% - PE gives you ambitious, driven, intelligent assholes who also never sleep. Strategics give you Karen, Barbara and Steve who have worked at the company for 35 years, think that you are a moron by default because you’re younger than their children, refuse to put in an ounce of additional work but still expect you to work weekends and nights, and are often doing a deal for the first time.

Pick your poison.

[Sackboy]

When I first started my career, I wanted to work on public M&A deals. As things have progressed, I'd really just like to do 100% private target deals.

[Anonymous User]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

Correct.That said PE guys know what they’re doing. representing strategics is a crap shoot. Half the time you spend a week hounding the client for disclosure schedules to get an email back saying “I don’t really understand this exercise. We gave them all this in diligence, can you just put tell me exactly what I need to do here?” And then they’ll give you a call 24 hours later when they’ve still done nothing saying “The buyer wants to know what the status on schedules are. Can you get these over today? I’m worried we’re falling behind here.”

This is eerily spot on. Damn.

[Olimando]

If you are referring to practice groups at a firm called "PE" and "Private M&A", then will just add that some firms call their private funds practice their "PE" group -- so that would be more of a funds role as compared to a transactional role.

[DiligentSage]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

Correct.That said PE guys know what they’re doing. representing strategics is a crap shoot. Half the time you spend a week hounding the client for disclosure schedules to get an email back saying “I don’t really understand this exercise. We gave them all this in diligence, can you just put tell me exactly what I need to do here?” And then they’ll give you a call 24 hours later when they’ve still done nothing saying “The buyer wants to know what the status on schedules are. Can you get these over today? I’m worried we’re falling behind here.”

I'll always take this over PE douchbags but holy crap, is this accurate and incredibly irritating.

[Anonymous User]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

Correct.That said PE guys know what they’re doing. representing strategics is a crap shoot. Half the time you spend a week hounding the client for disclosure schedules to get an email back saying “I don’t really understand this exercise. We gave them all this in diligence, can you just put tell me exactly what I need to do here?” And then they’ll give you a call 24 hours later when they’ve still done nothing saying “The buyer wants to know what the status on schedules are. Can you get these over today? I’m worried we’re falling behind here.”

Shell disclosure schedules, bro. Get those reps on paper and in Karen in HR's inbox and follow up every day.

[Anonymous User]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

You have a much higher likelihood of working for complete bastards in one of them.

Correct.That said PE guys know what they’re doing. representing strategics is a crap shoot. Half the time you spend a week hounding the client for disclosure schedules to get an email back saying “I don’t really understand this exercise. We gave them all this in diligence, can you just put tell me exactly what I need to do here?” And then they’ll give you a call 24 hours later when they’ve still done nothing saying “The buyer wants to know what the status on schedules are. Can you get these over today? I’m worried we’re falling behind here.”

Shell disclosure schedules, bro. Get those reps on paper and in Karen in HR's inbox and follow up every day.

This. Also, a day after the shell's gone over, get on a call to talk through every f'ing rep and the interim covenant. It's a headache, but once you/they put it on paper, they'll remember the 20 other things they need to disclose. Enjoy pulling your hair out in the meantime. (Otherwise, scarily accurate description.)

[Anonymous User]

Totally depends on who the clients are. Some PEs are just douchebags. Some are actually pretty nice to work with.

[Anonymous User]

Are there meaningful differences in exit options between private and public M&A practitioners? I'm worried that doing too many private deals and not enough public ones will close too many doors for me down the line, but not sure if I'm worrying for nothing.

Similarly, do PE M&A lawyers have materially different exit options than public M&A folks?

[Anonymous User]

Is private M&A a form of transaction for private equity clients? What's the difference between the two practices?

They both will work you to death and often times for seemingly no good reason. Disregarding the substantive differences, Public Will usually have the headlining names Bc most people recognize public companies vs private. Public deals are usually much longer in nature too - for various reasons. I have hand held many PE clients and many Public clients, so I wouldn’t always say PE guys “get it”.

Otherwise there’s a ton of overlap and some pieces of the contract are focused on more in one vs the other.

[Anonymous User]

Are there meaningful differences in exit options between private and public M&A practitioners? I'm worried that doing too many private deals and not enough public ones will close too many doors for me down the line, but not sure if I'm worrying for nothing.

Similarly, do PE M&A lawyers have materially different exit options than public M&A folks?

No - they’re different at the margins. You’ll likely have more reporting act and securities experience doing public, so you’d be most attractive to a public company in that regard, but most companies do private M&A. No companies other than law firms have people that only do, or even focus on, public M&A deals. Again, that doesn’t mean if you only do public that you’re in bad shape. The difference in exit options is marginal and you’ll have +90% of the ability that the Private guys will have plus more securities etc experience