The Man City private equity fund has been hiring junior bankers

Now that SoftBank's Vision Fund isn't what it was, the most exciting private equity fund to work for in London right now might well be Silver Lake, the PE firm which has just bought a $500m stake in Manchester City.

Silver Lake is a U.S. fund, but it's had an office in London since 2007. The European business is now run by Christian Lucas (ex-head of the technology IBD group at Morgan Stanley) and Simon Patterson (founder of software company GF-X). Traditionally, Silver Lake invested in technology companies, but now it's going after entertainment firms too. 

It's also going after junior bankers, who seem only too happy to be working for a fund involved in such a high profile deal. In August, Silver Lake's London office hired Anders Vinther-Antonsen from Morgan Stanley's media and communications team. In July, it hired Thibaut Laberty, a private equity analyst who had previously interned at JPMorgan and Paris-based PAI Partners. Previous recruits have been drawn from the same two banks.

It's not easy to get a job at Silver Lake in London. The most recent accounts for Silver Lake Europe LLP, for the year ending 31 December 2018, show it employing only 19 'administration and investment professionals' plus seven partners. The average administration and investment professional earned £200k ($258k) for the year, while the highest earning partner received nearly £2m. However, given that one of the partners was another company, Silver Lake Holdings Europe Ltd, this largesse may not have gone to an individual. 

Silver Lake Holdings Europe made a profit of £5m on a turnover of £15m in 2018. 

Photo: Getty 

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