ER Wealth Management v. Sell-Side

I am in the final stage of interviews with a small regional bank that has a wealth management division that manages $1B in assets. The position is a generalist equity research role with some trading components but is part of a 6 person team which consists of 3 PMs, a head trader, CIO, and this future person.

I am wondering if this will pigeon hole me later for moving into a ER role at a larger firm whether that is SS, HF, AM. Also, if anyone could shed some light on what the comp may be for a position like this for both an analyst and a Portfolio Manager compared to what you would be making at a sell-side firm or larger AM. The firm charges only a fee on AUM and has grown from $600mm over the past couple of years. I also have a few first round interviews coming up for SS ER roles.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

do sell side, I'm in wealth management and despite however detailed your role may be, the exit opportunities will be minimal as there's a negative connotation with wealth management and thorough analysis.

on the other hand, lifestyle is way better in wealth management, so there's that to consider as well. if you're young, I'd do sell side ER, you can go just about anywhere from that.

 

Do you know what kind of clients they have? Is it just wealthy individuals or are there institutional clients? Do they have one or more equity composites or do they just manage an account by account basis without tracking performance?

Exit opps will be really based on the firm and their investment style. Are these a bunch of talented managers striking out on their own who really want to run a deep value strategy and hand select clients that are aligned with the strategy? Or is just a run of the mill wealth shop that happens to sloppily run individual equities?

 

On the sell side you will develop better modelling skills and get to know a sector very well. A lot of your time will be spent (at the junior level) updating models, gathering data and cleaning it for research reports and writing short updates/notes on how events relate to the companies you cover.

A lot of sell-side guys want to get to the buy-side so if you have the chance to start there I would take it.

 
BeastMode:
Modeling experience is overrated IMO. Very few PMs will ever want to dig into your model when judging your investment thesis. Obviously you need to know how to do it correctly, but the best investment theses can be summarized in a few major points and don't need some complicated model to support them.

I agree with you 100% BeastMode, I don't think modelling skills make a great investor. Having said that, I do think it is one of the upsides in working on the sell side. Anyway, I would take the buy-side job anyday over the sell-side position, but thats just my 2c.

 
Best Response
BeastMode:
Modeling experience is overrated IMO. Very few PMs will ever want to dig into your model when judging your investment thesis. Obviously you need to know how to do it correctly, but the best investment theses can be summarized in a few major points and don't need some complicated model to support them.

Agreed, you will definitely learn to model on the sellside, no doubt about that. However, people I work with have been told to SIMPLIFY their models, as a robust model is not necessarily complicated - something it takes people coming from the sellside a while to learn. Basically, if you want to learn how to think, come up with a solid investment theses, with an eventual goal of becoming a PM - do yourself a favor and start on the buyside.

 

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