PE MF (HK) vs UBS IBD (NY)

Bit sick of the atmosphere on WSO (they give mostly US-based information)...so I have a quick question for TSR.

I'm on my 2nd year of a 4 year course. My goal for next summer is IBD at GS/MS, or preferably M&A/Restructuring at BX/LAZ/HLHZ/Roths/Moelis/other EBs.

I have two offers for this summer:

UBS IBD (leveraged finance) in New York. I will basically be working for family, but I don't see a future at UBS for me as I don't want to work with them FT, or go back to NY. So I will not be pursuing a return offer or any of the usual BS. Most importantly, I am afraid that recruiters in penultimate year will see that I worked at UBS and ask questions, and find out that I just got it through my family which is not very impressive, and it gives off impressions of a spoiled nepotist who really has no ability.

vs

PE team at a megafund's office in Hong Kong, ~20bn AUM. Firm is very reputable as of late, but may not be super well known in London. It's not super brand-name heavy but all their laterals come from KKR/Bain/Warburg, so it's a pretty decent firm among those in the know. Mostly be dealing with Series C tech investments. I secured this myself, so I don't have to worry about questions about how I got my job.

What would the more seasoned of you bankers/students recommend?

First of all, with both gigs you are on a good track for next year's recruitment at the firms you mentioned.

Hillhouse is not a megafund. KKR, TPG, BX, Carlyle, Apollo are the megafunds, as megafund does not only mean fund size, but also global reach, type of deals, quality of LPs, etc. That's it for the taxonomy though.

I would go for UBS for the brand name and the more relevant experience. You want to work in IBD, why not take an IBD internship. While not the strongest player in the US in traditional M&A, the LevFin franchise is still strong due to the simple fact of being a balance sheet bank. Furthermore, UBS is still a big and relevant player in Europe and the brand name will help you with recruiting in Europe. Trust me, not every HR lady and automatic filter will know/recognise/appreciate some big fund that is making a killing in China but is flying pretty much under the radar in the rest of the world. UBS on the other hand will count as extremely valuable pre-penultimate year internship, especially when in IBD/LevFin. Furthermore, I had numerous interviews and never was I asked how I got my internships. Just tell them you hustled, applied, were lucky to be invited and then impressed them. Done.

Why would PE be more relevant to M&A and RX than LevFin? LevFin works closely with M&A on M&A transactions and is responsible for the whole financing crap. Helping structuring everything from regular first lien bank debt to pik notes in a buyout transaction will give you a very very solid understanding of the credit dynamics, and that's what counts in RX. RX is all about renegotiating/restructuring the unsustainable debt that was loaded on by LevFin teams and buyout groups in the first place, so I don't see how LevFin is unrelevant. Coming into RX interviews, you will get the plain vanilla M&A Qs (comps, DCF, capstructure, EV, LBO) that everyone knows from numerous career guides anyway + the additional RX questions which are much deeper on credit and capital structure. In LevFin you definitely build a rock-solid understanding of the credit space. The PE job on the other hand, while exciting 'cause it is the glorified "PE-world", might leave you with reviewing one IM after another and I don't see you adding much value at a fund like this. But who knows.

All in all, both opportunities are nice to have at this stage of your early career, but I would probably take the UBS brandname over the arguably more exciting (sounding) HK experience.