Private Equity & LBO
Summer Program
When & Where?
On-Campus: June 30 - July 11 Summer 2025
Applications are OPEN for Summer 2025.
Want to know more? Join us for a webinar.
WHEN: Tuesday 25th March @ 1.15pm CET
The Academic Director, Professor Olivier Levyne, will join the Recruitment Manager of the program and answer all your questions.
Why this Summer Program?
Experience first hand the HEC Paris expertise in Finance: #1 Masters in International Finance 2024 (QS Ranking).
This Summer Program has been crafted by the Academic Director of the HEC Paris L'Oréal Academy which is offered to our Grand Ecole students and is dedicated to "Corporate growth fueled by deals with Private Equity funds". This expertise is shared in an adapted format with students from all around the world who come together during the summer school to experience the quality teaching of HEC Paris.
- Advanced Finance program to take your skill set to a superior level
- Created and taught by leading HEC Paris Professors
- A perfect balance of theory and practice to prepare for your next position
- Courses based on a combination of class lectures and discussions, applications to real-life case studies and group projects.
- Earn an HEC Paris Certificate following successful completion of the program.
The program enables participants to develop the required specific skills to apply for internships and jobs at Private Equity funds’. It is focused on LBO structuring with various tips such as several tranches of acquisition debt or cash sweep. A strong emphasis will be put on financial modeling. This means a full LBO Excel model will be built from scratch during this Summer Program. Such a model will include the same level of detail as simulations prepared by financial sponsors or investment banks that advise them.
Beyond financial topics, a special importance is paid to the legal documentation to be negotiated by a Private Equity fund.
This program advantageously complements M&A and Investment Banking programs as M&A bankers are more and more involved in the advisory of Private Equity funds.
Content Overview
Creating meaningful shareholder value requires strong profitable growth. In that context, CEO's of corporate groups often develop simultaneously organic growth and strategic acquisitions. Given their paramount footprint in many industries, Private Equity funds have become natural counterparts for corporate groups.
Negotiating with Private Equity funds, being their M&A advisor, or working for one of them is possible when the analysis of potential corporate targets is mastered.
This Summer Program is dedicated to developing a Private Equity mindset. It focuses on all required advanced financial tools and useful technical methodologies to optimize the structuring of a Leverage Buy Out (LBO), when a financial sponsor is in the loop.
In that context, the following pivotal topics will be dealt with:
• Building business plans: targets and dedicated holdings
• Calibration of the acquisition debt to be raised from a pool of banks
• Optimization of the financing with additional tranches of debt, including high yield bonds
• Finalization of the debt financing with mezzanine debt
• Calibration of the capital raised from a Private Equity fund, taking its Internal Rate of Return into account
• Impacts of a cash sweep on an LBO
• Measure of effective value creation at Private Equity fund level
• Arbitrage for a corporate between a deal with a strategic player and a transaction with a Private Equity fund
• Main provisions of the customary legal documentation: Shares Purchase Agreement, Tax Agreement, Shareholders’ Agreement
Learning Objectives
Upon successful completion of the program participants will be able to:
- Understand the paramount importance of Private Equity for M&A transactions
- Structure an LBO (Leveraged Buy Out)
- Optimize the financing for an M&A deal with a financial sponsor
- Measure value creation
- Prepare a professional presentation to pitch a financial sponsor
- Convince strategic players of the interest of a Private Equity fund for an identified target
- Draft fundamental provisions to be included in the legal documentation
Pre-requisites
This advanced program is designed for students or recent graduates who already have solid fundamental and technical knowledge in Finance and want to gain technicality and expertise. It is recommended that participants have a strong academic background in Accounting, Corporate Finance, or Economics.
Participants can also be considered eligible if they have attended in one of the following HEC Paris Summer School Programs:
‐ Corporate Finance or
- Accounts & Restructuring or
‐ Investment Banking and International Finance
Assessment
All participants are expected to be in class, come with questions and participate in group discussions.
Grading will be determined as follows:
- Presence & Participation 10%
- Individual Assignments 40%
- Group Project 50%
Participants who successfully complete the program will earn 5 ECTS credits. Full attendance is required to obtain the Program Certificate.
All students who are seeking credit are encouraged to consult their home academic institution to validate credit transfer.
The Summer Experience
