Distressed Debt Hedge Fund out of College - Prep Advice

I'm in the midst chatting with a distressed debt hedge fund along the lines of York/Cerberus/Davidson Kempner/Anchorage etc. to join as an analyst.I have no banking experience and would be joining straight out of undergrad and would work on a bunch of things like secured/unsecured NPL portfolios (consumer, real estate backed etc.) securitisation, think maybe CMBS stuff too.

I'm wondering what sort of advice you could offer to prepare for starting the job
I plan on reading - Moyer I got a pdf the other day (can share if anyone wants it)
Is there any good books to read for NPLs/securitisations?

I thought I would learn the following for each of the coverage countries:
-General Macro/micro business trends
-Political structure/environment
-Bankruptcy proceedings
-Brush up on my accountancy/valuation - re-read rausembaum & pearl ect.
-Banking system

 

Reading Moyer and learning about bankruptcy proceedings is fine and would show an interest, but I don't really think it'd be the best use of your time. Distressed/bankruptcy is really something that is best learned in practice and there are so many twists and turns my feeling is you're better off waiting to learn that stuff on the job. They're hiring you out of college, they know you have limited experience and I hardly think they're going to ask you to run a Ch.11 solo on your first day.

What I think the best use of your time would be is to polish up your credit analysis skillset and really try to understand the differences between equity and credit investing before you show up. Having the right mentality and a framework for looking at credit will serve you a lot better when you show up than having read Moyer, etc.

 

What's the best way for one to polish one's credit analysis skillset?

I've heard it's helpful to go through the Distressed Debt Investors Club pitches and try to reverse engineer them or to also try and pitch HY securities yourself. However, I'm having a hard time finding opportunities for the latter.

 
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