"The Pulse" --#81 / The Consolidation of Private Equity

Recruiting Timeline:

Banking:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Lazard, TD, and Intrepid Investment Bankers opened their summer 2026 apps. 19 firms are actively recruiting for summer 2026 positions. A few large banks will be opening apps on January 1st, so be on the lookout!

  You need to be practicing your technicals now to get ahead of interview season. A few small banks we previously covered have already extended first round interviews

New SA 2026 Applications:

• Lazard: Elite boutique, restructuring in Chicago (SA 2026)

• TD Securities: Middle-market Canadian bank, energy in Houston (SA 2026)

• Intrepid Investment Bankers: Middle-market arm of MUFG (SA 2026)

See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 300+ banks/consulting/buyside firms! Gain an edge over everyone else by not having to spend countless hours tracking applications and deadlines.

Consulting:

Where We’re At:

• 53 SA 2025 applications have been released along with 58 FT 2025 apps. Lock up an offer before recruiting season ends! If you have any questions shoot us an email.

SA 2025 released apps:

• None

FT 2025 released apps:

• Integrity Risk International - Research Analyst (SA 2025)

Apply ASAP if you’re interested!

Buyside:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Atlas SP, K1 Investment Management, Roark Capital Group, and Trinity Hunt Partners opened their applications. Currently 15 buyside firms recruiting for SA 2026 seats 

New SA 2026 released apps:

• Atlas SP: Apollo-owned specialty finance lender (SA 2026)

• K1 Investment Management: Middle-market, software-focused PE (SA 2026)

• Roark Capital Group: Large consumer-focused PE in Atlanta (SA 2026)

• Trinity Hunt Partners: Dallas-based consumer and tech PE (SA 2026)

The database is updated weekly and contains 300+ Investment Banking and Consulting internships/full-time positions along with:

• Interview tips for specific companies

• Interview prep material

• Applications and deadlines linked so that you can apply with one click

• Insider information about the application process

• Professionals to network with

• Buyside deadlines, interview prep, and people to network with for the sweatiest of students

We send the updated dataset every week with the latest banking and consulting job postings. We released our 81st update today.

Students we have been helping have already landed roles at Blackstone, Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Citi, and Solomon.

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Market Update:

For many young professionals in banking and consulting, private equity is the end goal that they’ve been dreaming of. Prestige, a more intellectually challenging environment, and higher comp are compelling for just about anyone. Today, we consider the state of the private equity industry.

PE has grown over the past few years in terms of AUM–it’s hard to understand how firms are even finding opportunities to put their capital to work given the market saturation. Whether you’re rolling up dental practices like Jett and Pookie or trying to ride the AI wave through infrastructure plays, high ROI opportunities are incredibly competitive.

The State of PE

There has been significant market consolidation over the past few years with large firms buying other asset managers. BlackRock alone has purchased both Global Infrastructure Partners and credit firm, HPS Partners. Both acquisitions were over $12 Billion, serving as an indicator that the asset management industry is reshaping. 

In 2024, the 15 largest funds accounted for almost 50% of total private equity capital raised. The logic is that firms want to diversify into new asset classes to increase AUM and scale.

It’s kind of crazy that the stock prices of KKR (+84.15% YTD), Apollo (+93.18% YTD), and Brookfield (+51.24% YTD) have probably outperformed a bunch of their actual funds YTD. Investors likely have a positive outlook for these firms given that their AUMs are so large and the management fees they are collecting generate billions before even considering their performance.

These firms continue to grow through inorganic growth (acquisitions) and because LPs are more interested in investing with established managers who have long track records as opposed to independent firms that haven’t been around as long.

Another consideration is that smaller firms feel heavier debt pressures from the low-rate era. When interest rates were at rock bottom in 2020 and 2021 funds felt good about taking on low-cost debt. However, rate hikes have led to burdensome refinancings and smaller funds are feeling the heat as they deal with the higher cost of debt. If the smaller funds can’t secure affordable financing, a buyout from a larger firm probably looks pretty attractive vs. winding down the firm.

Firms like KKR, Apollo, Blackstone, and other well-performing funds will likely continue to see growth and strong returns as the PE markets continue to mature.

All of this means that most capital is in the hands of a few very large funds. In other words, success is leading to more success in terms of capital raised and returns.

This is even more evident if you take a look at private equity’s little brother, venture capital— where fund size has ballooned. 10 years ago, a very large fund was $400mm. Now the top VCs have tens of billions under management. For example, Sequoia has over $55 billion and Andreessen Horowitz has over $52 billion. Granted these firms get pipelined great opportunities because they have been so successful in the past, but you have to wonder why they are raising such large funds when it is proven that smaller fund sizes yield better returns.

Looking Forward

According to EY there are roughly 11,000 PE firms; it is possible and likely that number will continue to decrease and there will be a larger concentration of mega-managers. In a market dominated by megafunds, fund managers with small AUMs and those with more niche focuses can continue to capitalize on overlooked opportunities. After all, it’s hard to imagine that megafunds like KKR would be interested in rolling up trailer parks in rural Virginia but I suppose they might surprise us.

Disclosure: Nothing written here is financial advice or should be used for investment decisions.

Net Operating Working Capital

Net Operating Working Capital can be a tricky subject...it still tricks up a lot of professionals today.

My quick points:

• The figure for NOWC doesn’t matter as much as the direction. So, it’s important to look at the change in NOWC period over period

• A negative change in NOWC = good, a positive change = bad

Net Operating Working Capital (NOWC) is a representation of the net resource excess or deficit a business has to fulfill daily activities (excluding cash and short-term financing).

If that's confusing, stick with me, I'll break down the components:

NOWC = Operating Current Assets - Operating Current Liabilities ✅ 

-Operating Current Assets: All current assets excluding cash ✅ 

-Operating Current Liabilities: All current liabilities excluding short-term debt ✅

Example: In year 1, a business has $20 of accounts receivable and $30 of accounts payable.

-Operating Current Assets = $20

-Operating Current Liabilities = $30

-NOWC = (20 -30) = -$10 ✅ 

If in year 2, that same business has $20 of accounts receivable, and $40 of accounts payable-- its NOWC = (20 - 40) = -$20.

(-$20) - (-$10) = -$10 change in NOWC ✅ 

Effectively, this business is self-funded. 🔥 

In this case, the business is receiving cash from customers quicker than it has to pay suppliers.

Amazon and Costco are classic examples of companies that consistently post negative changes in NOWC.

This is good, this yields positive FCF!

If you need to visualize this effect, look back to our FCF calculation: https://lnkd.in/eyPa6Yp3

Going Forward:

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Students we coached for SA 2025 have received offers at Goldman, JP Morgan, Evercore, and many other firms. Roughly 95% of those coached received offers last year!

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“The Pulse” #81 / The Consolidation of Private Equity