For a student on the verge of completing her undergraduate program at a leading international business school in China and determined to pursue a high-achieving career in finance and private equity, LSE’s MSc Finance and PE is a perfect option. Over the years, I have gone to great lengths in getting fully prepared for such a programme and my acceptance into your outstanding programme would justify all my worthwhile endeavors to date.

My exposure to "Private Equity” coincided with the deterioration of business environment in China around the 2008 global financial crisis. I come from Zhejiang, a province with the country’s most vibrant private sector. However, it is notorious that Chinese banks, mostly state-owned, tend to deny private businesses access to loans and credits, even though such private enterprises have the best business initiatives. The impact of the financial crisis and the blockade of bank loans forced the private sector in Zhejiang, as elsewhere in China, to resort to illegal financing, feneration, or usury, whose exorbitant interest rates and high risks rendered it all the more difficult for medium and small business to develop. However, for those more successful big enterprises or entrepreneurs, they face a dilemma of a different nature—they do not know how to best exploit their rich financial resources at hand. Under such circumstances, PE became a viable and financially and socially significant channel, bridging the potential investors and target companies.

Therefore, from the very outset of my undergraduate programme in accounting and finance at BFSU, I have been making all the necessary and important efforts to prepare for a high-achieving career in finance and PE. At International Business School, the best of its kind in China, taught largely by a first-tier international faculty, I have been developing solid knowledge in economics, finance, and accounting. My initiative and commitment to excellence won me crucial distinctions—a GPA of 3.90/4.0 (First-class Honours), ranked 1% in the entire class. I have been awarded several highly selective Merit Scholarships. With dozens of core finance courses, plus a few advanced courses in the final year, my knowledge base in finance is both systematic and in-depth. My academic background is further strengthened by two salient features. The first is a dual degree in English, equipping me with English proficiency and substantial knowledge about English culture, enhancing my cross-cultural communication and cultivating crucial international perspectives. Another is strong quantitative caliber, as evidenced by exceedingly high grades in a full range of mathematics courses such as Advanced Mathematics (I & II, Calculus Concentration), Linear Algebra, Probability and Statistics, and by my exceptional score in the GMAT Quantitative Section—51 (98%).

For me, academic studies are only one way of learning finance and this rapidly changing business world call us to know the industry itself. In response to the four major aspects of PE, namely, financing, investment, corporate governance, and withdrawal, I have consciously endeavored to gain knowledge and skills through internships. Compared with average students, my internships are much more numerous and extensive and it is no exaggeration to assert that my learning-through-doing approach has empowered me more than anything else.

Corporate finance is essentially about how to promote corporate growth. My first internship (01~03/20XX) came through the arrangement of AIESEC India (Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales), which landed me as an accountant at Kuprkabi Ceramic Design Studio, Mumbai. Performing cost accounting by applying rigorous standards, I helped restructure the company’s pricing system to reflect true costs and market demands, thus enhancing the company’s profitability while increasing the sales volume. In addition, I conducted market analysis by studying the preferences of tourists in India as well as Indians themselves. My research helped re-define the company’s product development strategies, thus laying a basis for its business expansion. There, I learned how a potential CFO can play a critical role in boosting the growth of a startup firm by getting involved in corporate finance and governance.

For my second internship, I could have chosen to enter a Big 4, but I ended up with a leading accounting and auditing firm in the province, Pan-China CPA Firm. This was because the local firm could expose me to the province’s private sector and observe how small and medium enterprises were shaped by changing business environments. In auditing two companies, in chemical engineering and construction materials industry respectively, I had ample opportunities to talk to the top management. What I learned was that, in 20XX, the province’s private sector was still suffering from the worsening aftermaths of the global financial crisis from without and the tightening of the monetary policy from within. The only way out of the dilemma seemed to transform from manufacturing-oriented business to hi-tech business. But the transformation process is difficult, requiring huge amounts of capital for R & D. It was there that I discerned how PE could play a crucial role in helping millions of such struggling Chinese enterprises to transform and to grow.

In the third internship, at Orient Securities Asset Management Co. Ltd. in China’s financial metropolis Shanghai, I focused on equity research, identifying target corporations with promising growth potential for investment. The most exciting part of the research was to unravel both the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that determine a company’s growth. In identifying those “pillars” that sustain corporate growth, I need to examine a given company’s moat (those insurmountable competitive edges) and analyze its valuation in connection with its corporate governance structure. I believe emerging companies are those with continued impetus in its core competency and certain best minds in the top management. Among five target dairy products manufacturers, I identified two most promising ones based on comprehensive and stringent analysis involving valuation models and my recommendations helped traders to realize a 12% monthly profit-earning rate. This equity research experience sharpened my business acumen and made me all the more passionate about PE because PE practitioners can most closely feel the pulses of growth of a startup company.

PE aims to nurture a small business into a future giant; therefore, to understand how a giant has become what it is can provide a vital frame of reference. The year 20XX marks the 17th anniversary of General Electric (GE)’s global Financial Management Program (FMP)’s presence in China, recognized as the world’s premier program for developing outstanding CFO. In Beijing alone, 3,000 applicants battled for an internship position and among the 300 called for interviews, I ended up as one of the 10 interns recruited, after several rounds of most challenging case studies and quantitative analysis. As Special Audit, I was responsible for ferreting out abnormalities in employees’ compliance with GE’s financial rules. In examining a sales team in Guangzhou, I discovered over-reimbursement by three employees, each involving 10,000RMB. With all the evidence collected, I reported the case to the senior manager. It was always pathetic to see people get expelled and lose their jobs, but I realized the system of internal control and impeccable employee compliance should never be compromised. The principles as exemplified by GE are equally applicable to startup companies of PE investment, which should resort to no illegal practices despite the overwhelming need to prevail amid fierce competitions.

Challenging as it is to acquire an internship position at a PE company, I did manage to talk the CEO of China Gateway Investment Management into giving me such a position. China Gateway is a joint venture involving GEN2 Partners (Hong Kong). Three of the 4 top managers used to senior professionals of investment banking at BNP Paribas. They have inspired me as my role models for their strict insistence on adherence to rigorous international standards. Under their mentoring, I have been working in the Fuwen Arts Fund Team, focusing on the art projects, a burgeoning PE market in China. I have been performing due diligence investigations and identifying key features that make an artwork commercially valuable, and sometimes involved in launching publicity campaigns to enhance an artwork’s prestige. As a result, I have gained fundamental understanding of the entire cycle of how PE investment projects are implemented, solidifying my determination to follow the footsteps of my role models by pursuing a PE career.

“Well-qualified” and “well-prepared”, those are the words that characterize my present application. This well-preparedness also includes a tentative career plan. As fresh graduates are unlikely to take up any significant position at a PE company, my plan is first to enter an investment bank to perform equity research so as to gain in-depth understanding of particular industries. With accumulated experiences, an extensive network of personal connections, and demonstrated business reputation, I hope to engage in the PE profession and work with such outstanding yet low-profile PE giants as KKR or Capital Group.

Obviously, LSE’s MSc Finance and Private Equity is superbly geared to my intellectual curiosity and career objectives. The programme starts with Asset Markets and Corporate Finance, leading to specific knowledge of private equity taught by the School's Abraaj Capital Chair in Finance and Private Equity. Students will be led to explore the structure of private equity (PE) funds and PE’ link with the venture capital and public securities markets. Case studies and the participation of a range of practitioners in the field will create wonderful learning experiences for students. Such a rare and prestigious programme is possible only at a great institution like LSE and in the time-honored global financial centre of London where I will simply have to learn and experience and then go for my goals.

Applicant: XXX
Date: 20 Oct. 20XX