Hi, I know what I'm talking about. These firms hardly dabble with public equities or derivatives, it makes no sense for them to do that. Most retail investors or pension funds who want to dabble with listed instruments will simply go to the big mutual fund companies or banks or do it themselves. They will starve to death if they position themselves as yet another "trader" or "stock picker".

And no, contrary to popular belief, PE is not some labour intensive operation where you need truck loads of people. A 10 man team with the intellectual capital and correct connections plus a few admin people is enough to run the show. Many of them tie up with bankers, lawyers, tax advisors on an-adhoc basis depending on needs.

The reason why PE creates this wrong perception of some humongus financial institution with super sophsiticated business modelling is because of the few mega billion dollar LBOs or privatization that gets reported in the papers. Another misconception is that only big banks and players can afford to pay well, big mistake.... Incentives are dependent on performance and the type of scheme the company offers, there is nothing inherent that makes big players pay better than small ones.