From Cold Call to Closed Deal: How a Private Equity Investment Comes Together, Part 1 – The Idea

Your office door creaks open, and you close your YouTube window in a knee-jerk response.

David – the Partner you work with most closely – walks in and glances from side to side, pretending not to notice you at first.

This must be something important if he hasn’t started talking yet.

You tap away on your keyboard while staring at the screen, pretending that you’re writing that important email that you should have sent out yesterday.

Finally, he opens his mouth.

“We need to talk about your performance.”

Why You Can’t Break Into Private Equity as a Foreigner in China

Despite my repeated warnings that emerging markets don’t care about you – only people who know the language, have connections, and are qualified to work there – this question won’t go away:

“I really want to work in China! How can I break into finance there? I’ve studied Mandarin for 5 years and I can read faster than Chinese people now! Show me how to get into PE!”

I’ve gotten tired of answering that one, so today you’ll hear from someone much better qualified to answer it than me: a reader who works in private equity in China.

He’ll tell you all about:

• How to network your way into the industry and how it’s different from PE in the US/Europe.
• Why foreigners are getting pushed out of the industry and why you’d have to be “crazy” to go work there these days.
• What you should do instead if you want to do business in China.
• How the pay and work culture differ from other parts of the world.

Bottles and Bottles? How You Really Win Clients and Land Mega-Deals as an Investment Banker

Why does the mainstream media hate Wall Street so much?

You can think of dozens of reasons, but one of the biggest is that they don’t understand what bankers really do to earn their fees.

They see news of million-dollar bonuses and assume that financiers earn those bonuses by sitting around and playing Monopoly.

But you don’t earn massive fees by playing board games all day – it’s a process that takes years, which is one reason why bankers make the money they do.

And the infamous “pitch” has very little to do with it.