Buyouts Madness In The Morning

Apologies for the light blogging today — took WAY too long to get from Boston to New York. Airport delays, in-air delays (including an aborted landing) and hellish traffic getting over the bridge. But…

I’m here, just around the corner from where Buyouts Madness will be taking place tomorrow morning. I’ll be on stage a lot during the event — even more now the Steve Pagliuca’s talk has become a Steve Pagliuca fireside chat with me — and have been pondering topics of particular relevance to young buyout professionals.

The one I keep coming back to is this: How is a young buyout pro supposed to get ahead in today’s environment? Specifically, how can you ever make partner if you’re unable to do new deals (due to a lack of leverage)? Do you just wait out the downturn, or perhaps hope that tough times will cause current partners to retire (as we saw among some VCs in 2002-2003)?

I’m going to put some variation of that question to most of our speakers tomorrow, including the few who managed through the last downturn. Hope to see a bunch of peHUB readers there… Remember, NCAA basketball, beer and Wii in the afternoon.