Investment Associate – Turnaround Private Equity

Das ist der Job

This is a highly demanding, intellectually rigorous mandate requiring an exceptional financial toolkit.

Darum lohnt es sich

To support accelerating deal flow in the current macroeconomic environment, the firm is seeking to appoint an Investment Associate to its core deal team.

Sourcing & Triage: Actively screen high volumes of distressed teasers from restructuring boutiques, insolvency administrators, and corporate advisory teams, rapidly triaging actionable targets from terminal assets.

Must possess the intellectual agility to synthesize fragmented information quickly and the commercial maturity to interact with distressed management teams, insolvency administrators, and creditors.

Position: Investment Associate – Special Situations & Turnaround Private Equity Location: Germany, Hamburg Overview: Our client is a highly specialized, operationally driven investment holding firm dedicated to complex special situations, corporate carve‑outs, and turnaround private equity across the DACH mid‑market.

The firm deploys capital into fundamentally viable industrial, manufacturing, and B2B service companies that are currently navigating severe strategic, operational, or financial distress.

By acquiring non‑core corporate orphans, underperforming divisions, or businesses facing capital structure dislocation, the firm leverages an intensely hands‑on operational approach to stabilize, restructure, and return assets to sustainable profitability.

Unlike traditional private equity mandates relying on macroeconomic tailwinds and financial leverage, this platform thrives on complexity, asymmetric risk‑reward profiles, and the ability to execute transactions under extreme time pressure and with imperfect information.

The successful candidate will be deeply involved in executing highly idiosyncratic distressed M&A transactions, navigating complex insolvency frameworks, and architecting deep operational turnarounds alongside seasoned restructuring partners.

Key Responsibilities Distressed Deal Execution: Drive rapid, high‑velocity execution of complex special situations, including corporate carve‑outs, distressed M&A, insolvency scenarios (e.g., Eigenverwaltung / debtor‑in‑possession), and recapitalizations.

Complex Restructuring Modeling: Build and deconstruct highly specialized financial models tailored to distressed environments. This includes 13‑week short‑term cash flow (TWCF) forecasts, complex working capital bridges, liquidation waterfall analyses, and bespoke carve‑out financials.

Downside Due Diligence: Spearhead intensive diligence processes focused heavily on identifying hidden liabilities, unearthing operational bottlenecks, and assessing downside risk mitigation. Coordinate specialized legal, tax, and turnaround advisors under highly compressed timelines.

Structuring & Legal Navigation: Assist senior partners in architecting creative transaction structures, differentiating between asset deals and share deals to ring‑fence historical liabilities and optimize day‑one liquidity.

Turnaround & Portfolio Stabilization: Partner seamlessly with the internal operational task force and portfolio company C‑suites to execute Day‑1 readiness plans, implement immediate cash‑preservation measures, and track rigorous turnaround KPIs.

Candidate Profile Experience: 2 to 4 years of rigorous, transaction‑heavy experience originating from top‑tier Investment Banking (strictly within Restructuring, Distressed M&A, or Leveraged Finance) or an active Special Situations / Turnaround Private Equity fund.

Big 4 Restructuring/Corporate Finance backgrounds will be considered only if transaction execution experience is highly demonstrable. Technical Elite: Exceptional analytical processing capabilities.

The candidate must be completely comfortable modeling extreme downside scenarios, unwinding complex capital structures, and analyzing granular, messy data sets typical of underperforming businesses. Temperament & DNA: A highly resilient, pragmatic operator with a high tolerance for complexity and ambiguity.

Structuring Acumen: A foundational understanding of European (specifically DACH) restructuring frameworks, insolvency mechanics, and the legal nuances of corporate carve‑outs is highly advantageous.

Languages: Absolute, native‑level fluency in German is strictly mandatory to navigate DACH‑specific legal/insolvency documentation and communicate with local management. Complete professional fluency in English is also required.

Education: Outstanding academic credentials from a leading tier‑one university in Finance, Economics, Business, or a related quantitative discipline. #J-18808-Ljbffr