Hello,
I am trying to decide between 2 hedge fund offers (only have 1 yet, but likely to get both very soon) and would really appreciate your help. I graduated from a top university in 2009 and for some reason (stupidly) chose to do economics consulting at a well-known econ consulting firm over banking for the past year. I've worked on a number of valuation cases and decided to try to get into the fund business. Basically I want a place where I can learn a lot but is also big-name enough that I can get into b-school, pursue other opportunities...etc. Both are entry-level positions.
Fund #1 is a pretty well-known legit distressed debt fund with approximately $2.5bn AUM. The official position title is called research assistant, and according to folks there I will basically be helping out the team of investment analysts. The fund also utilizes an activist-based approach and tries to litigate during bankruptcy court. Basically I think it is a great opportunity, but given the title of "research assistant" I'm not positive what the track is. The position is relatively new so I don't know whether they would try to groom me into an eventual analyst or whether I am going to be stuck doing mundane research whenever an analysts needs it.
Fund #2 is a very small fund, and unfortunately I am not positive how big their portfolio is (I'm guessing around $500 million). It is kind of strange because they are not open to outside investors but manage the portfolio of a group of rich European families. Basically besides back-office and traders there are only 2 or 3 investment professionals in the entire team. They come from good backgrounds but it's such a small place. In addition they invest across asset-classes and are generalists. In the past year they have invested in equities, currency, investment grade, real estate, and even managers. It seems like a fairly unstructured environment so I'm a bit worry how much analysis I'm going to learn. Basically if their investment decision is just to pull comps from Bloomberg and make a decision on a whim, I doubt I'll be learning much. I'm also worried about being a generalist at a fund - should red lights be flashing? I'm worried that I'm going to know a little about everything but not learn enough about a specific asset-class or industry. The position title is investment analyst and it seems like I could make some great contributions to the firm. In addition they were talking about some day perhaps opening the fund to outside investors (instead of the only investing the assets of these 6 or 7 European families).
So, basically I am a bit torn between the two. I think after 3 or 4 years I may go on to b-school, but I want to break into the industry before my MBA and get some useful experience.
If anyone has any comments or advice I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
Very close, but based on this information I would go with #1.
2!!!
Go with #1. Your experience will be more structured and it has the brand name you're looking for since you seem like you want to keep several options open down the road. I'm not an expert on hedge funds so correct me if I'm wrong but research assistant should be front office with opportunities to move up the rank. I say this because I had a friend that started as a research assistant and rose up the investment team - not sure if this is typical or one off.
1 sounds like the work will be more analytical however its only 1 vertical, distressed debt. On the other hand #2 may be slightly less technical and its probably more risk adverse (also aren't just picking investments on a whim when they are managing 500mm). You will get experience investing a cross a wide range of assets which won't pigeon hole you and will let you learn about what you are more interested in pursuing long term. It's a tough call as both sound interesting in their own right. What about the intangibles, such as fit and culture, or what you eventually want to be doing long term. How you gel with team and the culture of the office is often overlooked but I think it's really important.
Thanks for the advice guys. Unfortunately I don't really have a clue of the culture of the second firm as well as I would like, as the basically just grilled me non-stop. Hopefully I'll have a chance to visit them and learn a bit more about what I'd be doing.
I didn't mention this at first but at the first place I'm wouldn't be the only Research Assistant. They have 2 already there and are looking to add 1 or 2 more. I'm going to try to ask them what their experiences have been and what type of work they have done..etc.
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