Why Cinven: Interviews, Careers, & Portfolio

Cinven Overview

Cinven is a private equity firm established by Lionel Anthony in 1977. The firm has offices in nine locations worldwide particularly in Hong Kong, Madrid, Luxembourg, Milan, Frankfurt, Paris, New York, London, and Guernsey.

Cinven acquires corporations and emerging market firms based in the United States and Europe which fit their criteria with a minimum equity investment of €100 million.

Cinven primarily invests in six sectors:

1. Consumer
2. Healthcare
3. Industrials
4. Financial Services
5. Technology, Media and Telecommunications
6. Business Services

The firm’s funding base first came from three pension funds in the UK: Barclays Banks, the Railway Industry, and British Coal. It was reported that Cinven stands for Coal Investment Nominees’ for Venture Capital.

Cinven AUM

According to the latest regulatory filings, Cinven has $3.9 billion in assets under management as of March 27, 2023.

Cinven Interview Process & Questions

Investment firms can make changes with their interview process. However, you’ll notice some consistencies when you interview at Cinven (or similar firms) such as:

• Interviews consist of 4 to 6 rounds
• The initial rounds are supervised by junior investment professionals, while the more senior staff handle the succeeding rounds
• Entire process could last several weeks – unless it’s “on-campus” or “on-cycle” recruiting

Expect to receive a combination of behavioral, fit, and technical / investing questions when you interview at Cinven.

If you’re looking for help with your interview preparation, my Growth Equity Interview Guide is right for you.

Why Cinven

The most common question you’ll encounter during interviews is the “Why this firm” question.

If you’ve done networking, this is your chance to mention whoever you’ve connected with at the firm and how they’ve made a positive impression on you.

It’s also a great practice to research about the firm so you can come up with a better answer to this question. One way to do this is to listen to interviews with the firm’s founders, investors, and management team.

For example, here’s an interview with Alexandra Hess, Partner at Cinven:

Cinven Case Study

Case studies almost always show up when you interview at firms like Cinven. Firms use case studies to assess the level of communication skill and technical knowledge of each candidate.

Investment recommendations and financial modeling are the usual focus of case studies during interviews. However, for junior roles, a cold calling case study may be needed as well.

For more resources on case studies, check out my course.

Cinven Salary & Compensation

According to Glassdoor, associates at Cinven have annual salaries of £154K-£167K while analysts have salaries of £108K-£119K per year. These figures may vary depending on a professional’s experience, level of education, and other factors.

Cinven Careers, Jobs, & Internships

If you want to be part of Cinven’s investment team, visit our job board where we feature opportunities for them and other similar investment firms.

Cinven Portfolio & Investments

As per Crunchbase, Cinven has made 67 acquisitions and 10 investments. Some of their notable deals include Allegro, Barents, and Clario.

Notable Transaction: Archer Technologies

Archer provides integrated risk management (IRM) cloud software solutions with products that include ESG, audit, security, governance, and compliance.

Archer was initially acquired by STG in 2020 as part of the firm’s acquisition of RSA Security LLC from Dell. STG eventually partnered with Clearlake in 2021 to make Archer an independent company.

These combined initiatives made Archer double its SaaS ARR size. Now, Archer has more than 1,000 customers across the globe, including over 50% of Fortune 500 across consumer, tech, healthcare, financial services, and other end-markets.

In July 2023, STG and Clearlake Capital Group announced that they had completed the sale of Archer to Cinven. The terms were not disclosed.

Next Steps

Preparation is key to get ahead of other candidates when applying at firms like Cinven. To make sure you cover all the critical topics during your interview preparation, I highly suggest you check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Growth Equity Interview Guide is an online course which helps professionals get a good grasp of case studies, financial modeling, and other concepts that interviewers like to go through during the hiring process.

Take a minute to check it out and start learning today.