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I’ve heard the opposite tbh. One the the most operations focused UMM shops and a very strong ops leadership group
Haven’t worked at Platinum, but worked with Platinum and those guys are grade-a dickheads
I mean they’re value oriented investors buying some poopCos that are often extremely susceptible to getting crushed in market downtowns. But they buy them cheap. So if you turn around those poopCos everyone wins.
Is the team good and nice? Idk, but probably. Is it a role where you’ll learn a lot? I think so, being forced to turnaround some struggling ugly businesses. Is it really stressful/hard working on the ops side in this case? Probably more so than a kkr capstone (where the companies are probably in better shape at close). Is the investment team / committee going to be really demanding and aggressive to underperforming portco’s and the ops team? I would bet so. Is there more upside if you succeed? Probably? Idk
@A2 that article is insane. I knew they bought PoopCos but wow some of those were just OkCo’s that platinum has turned into PoopCo’s. Absolutely brutal - my previous fund I worked at was in the competitive process bidding against platinum for some of those companies (we lost obviously), and I can tell you some of them were doing fine….obviously they’ve gotten crushed by interest rates / softening customer demand, but so has every firm. That list is brutal
FWIW my good friend works there and loves it. I think it probably can be high pressure bc of the heavy ops lifts but they talk a lot about the learning and good team culture
Eh law of averages. Not awful most of the time
P1/A1 great to hear contrary points - I personally have only had good experiences connecting with Platinum ops people. Just curious if there’s anyone with ground truth
Nice - best of luck! My dream is to work at platinum in their ops group one day, seems like a terrific opportunity
Know some folks there who love it coming from mgmt consulting
Heard from a former ops person that they’re very value oriented, seldom hire consultants and try to do everything in house to add color
Seldom hire consulting firms to do work for them in lieu of internal consulting team***
Ex-Platinum VPT here. I did the role for two years. Do not — I repeat “Do Not” — take this role.
They will jerk you around on pay, you will be treated like a third-class citizen relative to the ops team at Platinum, and the work you will do is the same skill set as that of being an Associate at MBB (where I previously had worked six years prior).
There is a chasm of difference between what is told to you during recruiting and what happens in practice while you’re in the seat. They will change the terms of your compensation structure mid-year such that it is far less favorable than what you sign in the offer letter.
Base is 230-250. Bonus is 50% of base. They will never put your bonus amount in writing — even for months after the previous calendar year has been finished.
In my first year, when I attempted to ask for a higher base salary given distinctive performance, Platinum Ops team and the CFO portco labeled me a “flight risk” and, completely contravening my employment contract, turned my annual bonus (for past performance) into a forward retention bonus and moved out my payment date so I would not get paid until July for the work I did on the previous calendar year.
They told me I would get a change of control bonus that follows a grid: Columns are MOIC multiple upon sale; Rows correspond to time spent in the seat. The reward only goes up to 18 months. It is written such that if you do the time, you’ll get the corresponding payout upon sale. That was also untrue.
When I had served nearly two years, I asked if the change of control bonus would continue to increase with tenure. I was told it would not.
Additionally, in my employment contract it doesn’t say that you must be employed at the PortCo (or another Platinum portco) to receive the bonus. I was told that I would be receiving no change of control bonus when I left for another employer, despite having been a distinctive performer in good standing when I took another role.
So, if you want to continue to work as a glorified Associate at a consulting firm for $230-250k total comp (because they won’t pay you, or they’ll try to stiff you on the bonus) then Platinum VPT is the place to be.
The Ops team at Platinum will treat you as a VPT like a third class citizen. You are ‘the help’. The VP on the Ops team that I worked most closely with wouldn’t even bother to turn on his camera when we were having 1:1 weekly discussions.
There is no camaraderie between either the VPT and Platinum nor the VPT and the Portco leadership. To both you are the unwanted stepchild.
There is no double-blind experiment to learn if this is true, but if I can give any credit to this role it is that for having a truly unrewarding and unfulfilling two years of work that maybe — possibly — it enabled me to land a better job elsewhere.
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