Event driven hedge funds - questions re holding period and other
I'm curious about those working at event driven funds (or that have knowledge re the strategy), when you think about an investment what are the common guidelines? For instance, would you model by quarter the next 4 quarters (or do you go longer that that), pass on a good long term investment but with no clear catalyst, what kind of catalysts are preferred? From an interviewing point of view, what do these funds look for?
Thanks
There's no "official" definition of event-driven that I'm aware of, and there's a spectrum within self-identified event-driven managers in terms of how they operate and how strictly they define events/catalysts. Most people would consider merger/risk-arb and distressed funds "event-driven", for example. On the other end are "soft" catalysts that may be more loosely defined, like an earnings turn-around.
Some types of "hard" catalysts: Merger/acquisition Spin-offs Bankruptcy Recapitalizations
"Softer" catalysts: General activism/board replacement Business turn-arounds Capital return like buybacks/dividends
There're others like regulatory changes, litigation, etc that are hard to classify as one or the other.
The amount, type, and reliance on modelling depends a lot on the fund and the flavor of event-driven investing you're pursuing. A friend of mine at a merger-arb fund does minimal "modelling" as I think of it, for example-they're much more focused on regulatory approvals, deal closing probability etc.
One thing I would observe is that being labelled as "event-driven" is a bit like being labelled as "value"-generally speaking even though there ARE respectable alternatives, people would rather say they're value-focused and event-driven because who wants to say they buy over-priced stocks with no reason to go up???
Thanks for the information Kenny_Powers_CFA.
What would you say are the most commonly used valuation tools in event driven? Just a quick scenario analysis based on whether X catalyst plays out or do they also run DCFs?
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