(Brussels-based) Associate, Private Equity

Relocation required (German at C2 / full professional-speaker)

Associate / Senior Associate, Private Equity

About the Firm

The firm is a newly formed European private equity investor, headquartered in Germany and with additional offices in the Netherlands and Brussels. Its inaugural fund has been raised in full. The investment period is open and capital is now being deployed.

The mandate is pan-European and oriented toward control and co-control investments in established businesses. The firm is not organised as a large, multi-product platform. It is a concentrated investment partnership in the early phase of institutional build-out: a small senior team, a defined pool of committed capital, and a coverage model that runs across the German-speaking markets, the Benelux and the wider continent.

Brussels is a principal investment office, not an administrative outpost. The role is based there because the firm intends to underwrite and execute from the centre of its Western European coverage, while retaining particular strength in German-speaking situations and in cross-border transactions that sit between DACH, the Benelux and the rest of Europe.

The Opportunity

The firm is seeking an Associate or Senior Associate to join the Brussels team at the point at which the work changes from formation to investment. The successful candidate will participate directly in origination, underwriting, execution and the first phase of ownership.

This is a principal-investing seat inside a first-fund environment. The volume of process will be lower than in a large, industrialised firm; the requirement for judgement will be higher. Work product will be read by the people who decide. The standard is not completeness of a checklist. It is whether the analysis improves the quality of the capital allocation decision.

The role will suit a professionally trained investor or transaction banker who can move between financial detail and commercial substance, who can work with German-speaking counterparties at a Fluent German at C2 / full professional level, and who is prepared to relocate to Brussels in order to sit inside the firm’s live coverage rather than adjacent to it.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify and qualify investment opportunities across Europe, with particular responsibility for German-speaking markets and for situations that cross the DACH-Benelux corridor.
• Form an independent view of business quality: industry structure, durability of earnings, cash conversion, competitive position, capital intensity, management depth and the specific constraints of ownership, succession or carve-out.
• Design and lead, or materially own, the financial, commercial and structural workstreams of due diligence. External advisers will be used where they add value; they will not substitute for internal judgement.
• Prepare investment models, operating cases, valuation work and decision papers to a standard that can withstand senior internal scrutiny.
• Support structuring and negotiation through closing, including engagement with management teams, family or corporate sellers, financing counterparties and counsel.
• Contribute to post-closing ownership work: monitoring, follow-on questions, selected add-on screening and the translation of the original underwriting into the first period of actual partnership with management.
• Help establish the firm’s internal standards of analysis, documentation and investment discipline while the platform is still being built.
• Conduct market dialogue with appropriate discretion. In a first-fund setting, the quality of the firm’s external presence is part of the investment professional’s responsibility.

Candidate Profile

• Fluent German at C2 / full professional, including the ability to work directly, and without loss of nuance, with German-speaking entrepreneurs, family shareholders, management teams and advisers.
• Excellent English. Further European languages are advantageous, particularly where they strengthen Benelux or broader continental coverage.
• Training in a leading investment bank and/or a recognised private equity firm. The relevant formation is transaction quality, modelling discipline, and the habit of distinguishing a well-presented company from a durable investment case.
• Associate: typically two to four years of relevant deal experience, with evidence of genuine workstream ownership.
• Senior Associate: a more complete investment or transaction cycle, including exposure to diligence leadership, investment papers and closing dynamics.
• Technical excellence in accounting, cash-flow analysis, modelling and valuation, combined with the ability to write with precision.
• Intellectual independence and professional composure. The firm is small enough that uneven judgement is immediate