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You’ve been there. You just walked into the best party in Vegas. Perfect music, open bar, crowd full of people who all look like they’ve made it. The room hums with self-importance .........everyone telling each other how great things are. You feel it too. You’ve made it
theses
One of the most underutilised value creation strategies in PE right now. Buy the education platform. Buy the service companies. Place the grads. Repeat. Think about it: if you’re investing in HVAC, plumbing, electrical, auto repair....any business reliant on skilled labour.....then you already know the bottleneck isn’
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Short answer? You don’t. You get invited. It’s one of the most opaque, relationship-driven roles in private equity—and it doesn’t follow a normal recruiting process. You don’t apply. There’s no job board. No clear path. It’s more secret society than career ladder. Here’
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The problem is no one updates the plan. A deal gets signed. The spreadsheet gets built. Revenue projections go up and to the right. EBITDA margin magically improves by year three. And everyone agrees to it because, well, it has to pencil. But here’s the issue: Six months in,
Chasing looks like hustle. But it’s often panic in disguise. Attracting looks like patience. But it’s really clarity, consistency, and control. In private equity, most firms still chase. They chase deals, LPs, and talent. They run endless outbound cycles, react to auctions, and pitch the same tired “value
theses
America’s housing crisis isn’t creeping up on us. It’s already here and the math doesn’t work. Home prices are up 40% in four years. Mortgage rates have doubled. And nearly half of renters now spend over 30% of their income on housing. Meanwhile, the country is
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Capital is commoditised. So is M&A. Everyone has access to debt. Everyone’s getting banker decks. Everyone’s playing the same playbook from 2012, just with higher entry multiples. The last true edge? Talent. Not the “we’ll bring in a new CEO post-close” kind of talent. A
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I’d spend 5 minutes on past returns and 25 on how we actually create value. Because past returns don’t win the next deal. And they certainly don’t justify 2 and 20 in a market where PE is getting harder. The days of buying low, levering up, cutting
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Why? Because the call center model is a perfect storm of inefficiency: • High cost, low value-add: Average U.S. call center agent wage is ~$38k. Add training, turnover (30–45% annually), and management overhead… the true cost per seat is easily $60k+. • Customer experience is broken: Long waits, scripted answers,
events
On October 16th, Not Very Private Equity hosted an invite-only dinner at Chez Margeaux Members Club in New York. The evening brought together 10 senior private equity executives for an off-the-record discussion on the state of dealmaking, portfolio operations, and the realities of value creation in 2025. The event was
theses
Most people still treat divorce like a one-off legal event. But it’s not. It’s an industry. A massive one. And it’s ripe for a platform play. $50B+ is spent every year in the US alone across legal fees, mediation, financial restructuring, therapy, custody planning, moving house, selling
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The format is almost predictable. Everyone goes around the table, venting: • “The deal team doesn’t listen.” • “The CEOs won’t follow through.” • “We don’t have real authority.” • “We’re treated like consultants on retainer.” Nods of sympathy, stories swapped, maybe even a war wound or two. And then