It used to be mysterious and curious for me whenever think of anything about private equity before I participated in Private Equity (PE) Course offered by Renmin Business School in this fall semester 2020. This is another part of finance world which hardly contacted by an ordinary business person especially in Asia. Therefore, I really appreciated this opportunity provided by Renmin Business School. Our professor, Marc Kitten who has been a professional and senior practitioner in Europe PE industry for many years and always passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience with us.

Unlike most of the finance courses, PE is not a purely quantitative course, which requires many calculations all the time to do a company valuation instead, this course is focused more on the fundamental analysis, drivers of value creation and real worlds application applied by industrial professionals. The objective of this course is to understand the main aspects of deal structure and recognize the value creation in PE. Therefore, I think this is a perfect course for those who have a basic foundation in financial knowledge and eager to explore further and deeper in financial industry.

Speaking of the delivery of the course, Professor Marc provided several case studies for us to prepare every week to enable us the hands-on opportunities to cope with the real practice on different part of deal making process and business model analysis in different industries. Those weekly case study assignments were done in form of groups and we need to establish teamwork in order to fulfil different tasks within a limited time, which was quite challenging for us especially in this pandemic period. It is my honour to be assigned as the team leader and have a quality discussion with my team members from China- Ariel, Jane, Alice and Ray. Fortunately, there is no time differences between Malaysia and China which allowed us to have discussion smoothly and also provided me an opportunity to learn from Chinese students. Another interesting part of this course is having open question discussions during class so that everyone could share their opinions or ideas on different issues instead of just unilaterally receiving comment and having input from the professor.

One of the most meaningful part of this course is having guest speakers in PE industry from all over the world. All of the guest speakers are senior industry practitioners from different markets including Europe, Asia and Africa. They not only introduced what they are working on but also provided some very detailed insights and recommendations to us, which are very useful information for those who wish to dedicate himself into a private equity career in the future. Even though having guest speakers may consume some of the valuable time in the course, but they definitely worth it!

All in all, RMBS has provided us a well-organized and fruity course with creative delivery mode despite difficulties in teaching environment during global pandemic. Although the course has only 8 sessions with plenty contents and heavy workload, it is nevertheless a great online learning experience to learn from everyone all over the world. Last but not least, I could have said, that Private Equity RMBS is indeed a worthwhile course highly recommended for those junior RMBS student who are interested in private equity.