Senior Associate, Secondary Investments

Overview

Adams Street Partners (“Adams Street”) is a global private markets investment manager, operating in more than thirty countries across five continents. With five decades of experience and more than $50 billion in assets under management, Adams Street prides itself on the depth and breadth of its global investment capabilities and provides investors with differentiated access to the spectrum of the private markets strategies.

Adams Street has offices in Austin, Beijing, Boston, Chicago, London, Munich, Menlo Park, New York, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo. Employees operate as a single global team, integrating the expertise of the firm’s investment professionals across five strategies: primary investments, secondary investments, growth equity, private credit, and co-investments.

Adams Street is considered a pioneer in the private markets and was inducted into the Private Equity Hall of Fame in 2000 in recognition of the firm’s contributions. Adams Street became an independent entity in 2001 and a 100% employee-owned firm in 2008.

As an employee-owned firm, Adams Street believes in a culture of inclusiveness and collegiate achievement, and strives to imbue the highest standards of integrity, respect, and teamwork into all aspects of the organization. Adams Street is governed by a set of guiding principles which prioritize two goals: provide exceptional client service and deliver top-tier investment returns.

About the Secondary Investment Team

Adams Street’s secondary investment team consists of 14 professionals globally.  To date, Adams Street has closed on over 260 secondary transactions, ranging from traditional acquisitions of limited partnership interests from other private equity fund investors to more complex, structured acquisitions of portfolios of direct company interests and creative liquidity solutions to fund managers. 

It manages approximately $7.4 billion, currently investing its seventh dedicated secondary fund as well as capital from multiple other Adams Street funds of funds and separately managed accounts. The team’s leveraging of the firm’s unique knowledge base and relationships across private markets and its disciplined and balanced approach to investing have generated exceptional long-term returns that have outperformed private equity industry benchmarks on a consistent basis.

Responsibilities

The Senior Associate, Secondary Investments role is responsible for sourcing, analyzing, modeling, and monitoring investment opportunities. The position offers a deal-oriented, high-responsibility role exposed to the full array of private markets subclasses, including venture capital, buyout, mezzanine/subordinated debt, restructuring/distressed debt, and special situation funds across all industries and in both developed and emerging markets. Senior Associates are deeply involved in the generation of due diligence plans for the team’s investment opportunities. They regularly develop a variety of cash flow models, investment theses, and various risk analyses and present this work to the Secondary Investment Committee. They also assist in the management of related projects and processes. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Performing quantitative analysis, including LBO, fund, and transaction modeling
• Conducting market and company research
• Leading due diligence calls with sellers and GPs
• Making recommendation presentations to the Secondary Investment Committee
• Assisting in all other aspects of investment review, including deal selection, pricing analysis, documentation, and negotiation
• Leading closing execution of approved and agreed transactions
• Conducting secondary market research
• Performing deal monitoring and maintaining market intelligence
• Participating in identification of deal sourcing targets

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree with strong related academic performance
• 3-5 years of total work experience
• At least one year of secondary private equity transaction experience or demonstration of its equivalent in direct private equity or a related investment management field
• Strong analytical, modeling, organizational, and writing skills
• A professional presence with relationship and communication skills to interact effectively with internal and external parties
• A highly motivated, self-starter with the ability to work independently within a team context

This Senior Associate position is open for an immediate start and will ideally be based in our Chicago office.