Private Equity Firm Structure and Selected Regulations

When compared with the total size of the companies that they invest in and oversee, PE firms are relatively small. Blackstone, KKR, and Texas Pacific Group (TPG) are three large firms at the center of the industry. Blackstone has a staff of 1,470 professionals in 22 offices around the world. This staff manages $150 billion in assets and portfolio companies with a total of 686,000 employees.⁶ Smaller firms will often have significantly fewer personnel. A firm with $250 million in assets under management may have a staff of 20 to 40 employees; a firm with under $100 million in assets under management may have a staff of five to seven employees.

Many PE firms outsource functions to leverage their staff. Investment due diligence and operations assessments are sometimes performed by external advisors, effectively reducing the current staff size at PE firms.