I used to work for a partner that specialized in private equity. Well, there were a few partners, but this one in particular worked for a Big 4 in the Cayman Islands for years. Cayman is known to be a hub for the world’s hedge funds and private equity funds because it is a tax-free jurisdiction.

He ended up bringing that experience back to Vancouver and was the lead partner on a client that had ~USD $12B AUM (in today’s figures). $12B is small potatoes relative to Brookfield, CPP, and mega-funds in the US, but it’s also…. not a small amount of work, at the same time. Keep in mind that Vancouver is still mid-market compared to Toronto, New York, and Chicago.

I basically worked on this client for 6/12 months of the year for 3 years straight, almost exclusively for their private credit and mortgage backed securities funds. I wanted to die on the inside by the end of it... haha. One of my good friends from the firm, who was probably the smartest cookie in the bullpen and whom I always had to ask for help, ended up making a great career out of commercial real estate. There is serious money in commercial real estate.

In addition to this particular client there were some other PE type clients that the firm advised on deals, partnership structures, etc. I would say that we were very well versed in alternative assets and private markets investments. It wasn’t a fluke that our clients were extremely, extremely wealthy.

Most of my friends ended up going to that company with $12B AUM to work on their internal deal teams (“buy side”). Some of them still work there til today. They’ve gotten pretty big now so they recruit directly from investment banking too.

The issue I had with this route is that I really wanted public company experience because I wanted to be a CFO at the time. And in Vancouver, pubco CFO’s usually go through pubco audit or have worked pubco for years. Luckily I did end up getting all the pubco experience that I needed and more, and I don’t have any regrets.

So yup, this was my untraditional path of getting PE experience! It’s different than how it works in the US, but that’s just how these things go.

It’s also the backstory to how I know all the stuff that I know, how I am able to work with the clients that I do, and how…. I’m not just any vanilla accountant 😉