What I've Learned About Hedge Fund Structure and Compensation

Hedge Fund Structure

Over the last few months I’ve realized just how diverse hedge funds are, and how little people (both in/out of the industry) understand about the different structures. This is my attempt to distill some of the bigger differences in ‘team structure and compensation’. It’s a detailed answer to a question I asked two years ago: .Tiger cubs vs. hedge fund gaints. This isn’t really about investing strategy (credit vs. l/s equity vs. activist), though certain strategies lend themselves better to certain structures. Hopefully others can chime in with additional insights.

Hedge Fund Terminology

To begin, some terminology:

Hedge Fund Manager (Manager) – Has ultimate control over the fund. Often the entrepreneur that started the fund, and usually starts out as the portfolio manager as well.

Portfolio Manager (PM) – Makes go/no –go decisions on what gets into a portfolio and how its sized.

Sector Head – In charge of a specific sector within a fund (e.g. technology sector head, health-care sector head). At multi-manager funds sector heads are often also portfolio managers, though sometimes they are just analysts with seniority

Analyst – can have different seniority/ titles, but this is essentially anyone that researches ideas and sells/pitches them to a Portfolio manager, who ultimately gives the go/no – go

Different Fund Structures and Compensation

Single Manager Funds

Most common type of fund. Consists of one PM and any number of Sector Heads/ Analysts.

Pros: adaptable to a wide number of investing strategies; often a good mentoring environment with a high degree of access to the senior decision maker(s); generally the fastest structure in terms of decision making; less bureaucratic/ more transparent; analysts will often be involved in decision making, etc

Cons: The size of an investment team under this structure is pretty limited. Once the team reaches a certain size (10+ analysts) some of the advantages will start to fade and it will become more hierarchical

Pay: Varies a lot, but generally good transparency. Fairly typical for a manager to end up with 50% of total profits one way or another

Multi-Manager Funds

Often what happens when a single manager fund grows up/ gets too big for one person to make all the investment decisions. The fund is then split up under multiple PMs/ sector heads that have discretion over their own portfolios and ‘sector teams.’ Exact implementation can vary widely, from a system where individual PMs have broad discretion over investing decisions (a la a multi-manager platform), to one where the manager/ chief investment officer is still heavily involved on each team.

Pros: Effectively same as single manager, less access to manager level senior people but preserves access to portfolio decision maker (PM)

Cons: By definition, sector team structure means these are unlikely to be generalist roles.

Pay: Roughly comparable to single manager funds. For analysts, may be slightly less on the margin since your P/L will be split with both your PM and the manager

Multi-Manager Platforms

Multi-manager platforms seed PMs who run independent funds. Each PM is tasked with implementing a specific strategy and the ‘platform’ then takes some cut of the fees. Four of the better known American examples are Citadel, SAC, Millenium, and Balyasny. Platforms tend to make extensive use of leverage, and have correspondingly strict risk limits (e.g. limiting volatility and total drawdown). The best PMs are rewarded with more capital, while underperformers are terminated. As a result these can be very high pressure places to work, though not necessarily directly competitive (PMs will generally have limited concern/awareness of what/how other PMs or the fund in aggregate are doing, as it doesn’t affect their own PnL).

Pros: PMs and analysts can just focus on investing, since administrative details are often taken care of by the platform. Can also be incredible lucrative, though this depends on the details

Cons: Can be incredibly high pressure. PMs that don’t perform are frequently fired (along with their analysts). Constraints on risk taking can also encourage short-term thinking

Pay: Depends on the platforms deal with the PM, and the PMs deal with the analyst. Deals can range from ~10 – 20% of total PnL (i.e. very high relative to pay elsewhere). Platforms can afford this because of leverage. For illustrative purposes:
Assume the platform/GP's average performance fee is 22%. Take a billion dollars, leverage it four times, split it among eight teams ($500M each). The average team returns $50M (10% is decent in risk-constrained/beta neutral style) and the average team takes $8M (16% * $50M). Total compensation to the teams is $64M (8*8) and the GP makes $24M (22% - 16% = 6% *$50M = $3M * 8 teams). Net returns to the LPs will then be $400 - 66 - 24 = $312, or 31.2%.

Hedge Fund Examples

SAC: Technically a family office now. Styles vary widely, from short-term/ trading focused (holding periods of a few weeks) to longer-term, fundamental, or even deep value teams. Team size varies, with some small (2 – 4 people teams) and some teams that are like mini idea factories (i.e. analysts crush on analysis and don’t even know what’s being put in the portfolio)

Citadel: Nearly everyone here works within a market-neutral (0 net exposure, $s long = $s short), relative value framework (though some of the carveouts, e.g. Surveyor, are different). At the extreme end, some teams/ analysts cover a well defined universe (30 – 100 stocks per analyst), and are expected to be invested in most of them at any given time. These teams tend to trade in pairs (long company X, short company B in same sector to hedge out sector risk).
Citadel is known for having very strict risk constraints (re: max allowable drawdown, market exposure, etc) and if you consistently break them you will be out of the job in very short order. Opinions vary more than I’d expect on whether this is a good place to work. The biggest complaint I hear (my people are long term value guys) is about the obsession with the short term (e.g. trading quarters)

Balyasny/ Millenium: Roughly similar to SAC/Citadel. Balyasny tends to be a bit more varied in terms of style, while Millenium (like Citadel) is more strict on the short-term/relative-value trading

Notes on Hedge Fund Manager Compensation

Under any structure, the two things that drive pay are basically AUM/ person and seniority/ shared economics. Consider that an analyst at a $5 - $10B fund will sometimes make single investments that are $200 - $500M, bigger than many small funds. An analyst (senior) that gets a share of the economics can thus easily make more than the manager of a successful smaller fund.
Comments, questions, and additions welcome. I’m sure I’ve completely missed some interesting things. Does anyone know what Blackstone’s proposed ‘big-bet’ structure is all about?

Edit: edited discussion of platform economics per conversation with PEHFVC below

Looking to Break into the Hedge Fund World?

Want to land at an elite hedge fund use our HF Interview Prep Course which includes 814 questions across 165 hedge funds. The WSO Hedge Fund Interview Prep Course has everything you’ll ever need to land the most coveted jobs on the buyside.

Hedge Fund Interview Prep Course

 

Without jumping down your throat, there are a lot of issues here. It is a good example of why it's difficult-to-impossible to create a list like this, and even more so when you are going primarily off of answers gleaned on a website and not first-hand experience.

I will try to respond with some specifics in the near future.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 
Kenny_Powers_CFA:

Without jumping down your throat, there are a lot of issues here. It is a good example of why it's difficult-to-impossible to create a list like this, and even more so when you are going primarily off of answers gleaned on a website and not first-hand experience.

I will try to respond with some specifics in the near future.

Look forward to your addition. I will say though, that this is based on experience and discussions with people that work at these places, not data i've gleaned online.

Obviously, there will be exceptions (intra-group variation > inter-group). By definition capturing a broad view of the world implies generalization. Anyhows, would like to hear your thoughts

 

I work at a small commodity focused fund and run an energy portfolio there. Without revealing too much; PM me if you'd like to discuss more, here are some basics:

Risk: Typically portfolios sit around 10-15% M2E and are capped at 30%. Portfolio drawdowns are flagged at 1.5%, 2.5% and 5% of total portfolio AUM. At 1.5% you get the head of risk asking a few basic questions regarding your risk/reward, stop placements and trade conviction. At 2.5% you have a documented meeting to justify your positions and identify those that are contributing to the drawdown (have market conditions changed dramatically? Is this just noise? Are you getting emotionally attached to your position?) At 5% you are stopped out and the plug is pulled on your book. You are given a cooling off period to reconsider and can re-enter the market after 48h. More than 2/3 5%'ers and your risk limits are considerably reduced, a few more and you are done.

Strategy: Usual holding period for a position in a portfolio is 1 - 12 months in duration. Generally a top down bottom up approach to analysis which considers macro and market specific fundamentals first and then market positioning/technical indicators second. Detailed supply/demand modelling and scenario planning is expected and you should have a deep understanding of why certain commodities are moving to certain geographies and what might constrain or improve that flow (geopolitics, differentials, logistics, etc.) A deep understanding of who is buying what and who is selling what, and why is also expected. If VLO are picking up constrained cargoes and bringing them into the Gulf Coast; you should know what the cargoes are, which refinery they are most likely to go to and how this will effect crude and product balances in the region.

Splits: Because of the size of the fund and the relatively high overheads (headcount is too large and there is a generous marketing budget to cover), profit splits aren't great. Everyone has a reasonable basic ($100 - $250k, increasing based on seniority). Each fund takes 20% of 20% performance and splits amongst the desk at the PM's discretion. Management fee's go to covering overheads.

 
delayedresponse:

I work at a small commodity focused fund and run an energy portfolio there. Without revealing too much; PM me if you'd like to discuss more, here are some basics:

Risk: Typically portfolios sit around 10-15% M2E and are capped at 30%. Portfolio drawdowns are flagged at 1.5%, 2.5% and 5% of total portfolio AUM. At 1.5% you get the head of risk asking a few basic questions regarding your risk/reward, stop placements and trade conviction. At 2.5% you have a documented meeting to justify your positions and identify those that are contributing to the drawdown (have market conditions changed dramatically? Is this just noise? Are you getting emotionally attached to your position?) At 5% you are stopped out and the plug is pulled on your book. You are given a cooling off period to reconsider and can re-enter the market after 48h. More than 2/3 5%'ers and your risk limits are considerably reduced, a few more and you are done.

Strategy: Usual holding period for a position in a portfolio is 1 - 12 months in duration. Generally a top down bottom up approach to analysis which considers macro and market specific fundamentals first and then market positioning/technical indicators second. Detailed supply/demand modelling and scenario planning is expected and you should have a deep understanding of why certain commodities are moving to certain geographies and what might constrain or improve that flow (geopolitics, differentials, logistics, etc.) A deep understanding of who is buying what and who is selling what, and why is also expected. If VLO are picking up constrained cargoes and bringing them into the Gulf Coast; you should know what the cargoes are, which refinery they are most likely to go to and how this will effect crude and product balances in the region.

Splits: Because of the size of the fund and the relatively high overheads (headcount is too large and there is a generous marketing budget to cover), profit splits aren't great. Everyone has a reasonable basic ($100 - $250k, increasing based on seniority). Each fund takes 20% of 20% performance and splits amongst the desk at the PM's discretion. Management fee's go to covering overheads.

does your firm use futures at all? or do you use derivatives?

all the fx/interestrate shops ive come across and manged to talk to people who worked there said they dont touch spot contracts and use derivatives primarily..

alpha currency trader wanna-be
 

Question to make sure I'm reading this correctly - at the multi-manager platform shops, investment professional compensation is a fund expense equal to about 20% of gross pnl, and then the management company takes another 20% promote on whatever is left after that? Nice work if you can get it.

My only experience was at one of the multi-manager funds. At that fund, everyone got paid out of the 20% promote. Without knowing the exact numbers, my impression was that investment teams received ~8-10% of their dollar pnl, and the remaining 10-12% covered back office bonuses and partner payments. I could be off on the split, would love to hear from someone who knows the typical numbers.

 
BTD:

My only experience was at one of the multi-manager funds. At that fund, everyone got paid out of the 20% promote. Without knowing the exact numbers, my impression was that investment teams received ~8-10% of their dollar pnl, and the remaining 10-12% covered back office bonuses and partner payments. I could be off on the split, would love to hear from someone who knows the typical numbers.

That's the impact of the leverage. If you are levered 4x and everyone makes 10% your returns are actually 40%. The teams effectively take 8% and then 'the platform' takes ~6% in this example.

I think it's typical for fees to be staggered (e.g. you get 10% of your first 10% in returns, 15% of the next 5%, and so on. I know a newish portfolio manager who gets ~15% of dollar PnL and a small expense account for managing a few hundred million. Ultimately, the economics for a portfolio manager aren't too different from if you were running your own fund (except you don't get to share the management fee).

 
Best Response
dazedmonk:
BTD:

My only experience was at one of the multi-manager funds. At that fund, everyone got paid out of the 20% promote. Without knowing the exact numbers, my impression was that investment teams received ~8-10% of their dollar pnl, and the remaining 10-12% covered back office bonuses and partner payments. I could be off on the split, would love to hear from someone who knows the typical numbers.

That's the impact of the leverage. If you are levered 4x and everyone makes 10% your returns are actually 40%. The teams effectively take 8% and then 'the platform' takes ~6% in this example.

I think it's typical for fees to be staggered (e.g. you get 10% of your first 10% in returns, 15% of the next 5%, and so on. I know a newish portfolio manager who gets ~15% of dollar PnL and a small expense account for managing a few hundred million. Ultimately, the economics for a portfolio manager aren't too different from if you were running your own fund (except you don't get to share the management fee).

I don't think it works like this (in general) though I won't speak for any of those specific funds, and it's possible times have changed (some years ago I briefly was auditor of hedge funds). Internal leverage shouldn't matter to what the LP ultimately pays in performance fees. In other words, the PnL is what it is, and the GP gets ~20% of gross return, and it's those dollars that are split between the owner of the GP and the PM/team. In case of "eat what you kill" platforms, that could be anywhere from 50-80% (or ~10%-16% of gross PnL). In multi-manager funds going to be closer to the 50% (depending on how they want to charge you for analyst resources, etc.)

 

I still say 2 and 20 is crazy and almost nobody should command this kind of rake. but yeah, those economics sound pretty sweet. Thanks OP for sharing, thought it was helpful, I learned something. Obviously tough to be comprehensive and general at the same time given the diversity of structures/strategies/tenure at various funds.

 
jankynoname:

I still say 2 and 20 is crazy and almost nobody should command this kind of rake. but yeah, those economics sound pretty sweet.

Fees have definitely come under pressure in recent years, so getting a full 2/20 is nearly impossible if you're not already pedigreed. I definitely agree that the pay structure is kind of crazy for long/short equity. With the increasing commoditization of analyst talent, many long-only funds are roughly as good at picking longs and charge a fraction of the cost. If I was an LP I'd wonder if my managers were good enough at shorting to justify the fees.

 

It depends on the people running the fund. Some guys are very focused on copying Buffett and as a result run incredibly lean when it comes to employees. I think Mohnish Pabrai ran $600M with just himself and 2 secretaries at one point. At the same time, I've seen some funds with $300M in AUM have 10 employees on the investment side. So it just varies.

Seneca Capital which was mentioned in a recent WSJ article only had 10 employees on the investment side with $5B in AUM.

 

As Highway Six said it varies. Single-strategy funds only need so many people; value is a good example of a situation where a small or midsize fund can make due with a couple of really good analysts.

Michael Burry, for example, ran Scion basically on his own because he was an amazing analyst with a literally autistic mind for detail and finding value.

On the other hand funds often have more people on different "desks" because it's so hard to "know" everything you need to manage money across strategies, asset classes and industries.

One advantage to Asset Management as a business model is that it's fairly scalable. The fund I work for could easily double our AUM and only hire one or two more people, mostly on the operations side.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 
Kenny_Powers_CFA:
Michael Burry, for example, ran Scion basically on his own because he was an amazing analyst with a literally autistic mind for detail and finding value.
Scion was actually a fairly decent sized in terms of the number of employees...there were at least 6/7 analysts as well as Burry which for a c.$600m sized Fund is about normal...
 

Ya another good comment on this imo is average holding periods for the manager.

Pabrai for example held minimum of 1yr and a day to take advantage of taxes as the mantra of value investing holding period says.

but... i've heard of value funds flipping short positions in less then a yr due to favorable market situations. Funds that allow more turnover would utilize the extra analyst.

BTW, anyone have a number of analyst/pms at baupost?

 

Based on scanning linkedin it looks like there are around 15-25 in research and trading and another 30-40 in various IT, accounting, etc roles. That is just going on titles and figuring a handful aren't on linkedin and it jives with what I know about other big value funds.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

interned at relatively new (1yr open, not open to public investors yet) value activist fund, had 7 people including me (MD,CIO,director of research,, 1 research analyst , Operations manger, MBA intern and me undergrad) all except MD and CIO had IBanking exp, they had annualized return of 22% when i left

spoke with the analyst there the other day he said director research left and the MBA intern went back to school so 5 now, I'm also pretty sure theyre doing good as far as returns go....

so its safe to say its not about manpower but quality of minds/connections(which are very important in the hf world)

http://www.youtube.com/embed/2ZBtPf7FOoM

"Seeing this house and your fine sword and hearing how you're importing and exporting chinamen, let me guess, you must be fucking rich." Kenny Powdersss
 

WellI def think you need more than one man, 2maybe 3 most probably 4 def one giant time killer was all the channel checks/conf. calls with management:

Aum less than 50

"Seeing this house and your fine sword and hearing how you're importing and exporting chinamen, let me guess, you must be fucking rich." Kenny Powdersss
 
happypantsmcgee:
I did some work with a fund that had 8b AUM and they only employed ~20 people and a few secretaries
20 total including ops, accounting, etc, or just research & trading? Either way impressively lean.
Matt the Tiger:
I think there is a diminishing return and set hurdle rate connection with returns and analyst/personel...

True to a point, but if you're a Greenlight (to use an example with a lot of info available) you probably need analysts with pretty deep specialty in various industries or otherwise to keep $5bn+ invested just in terms of idea generation. The company started with just Einhorn and his partner, but you can't deploy $5bn across 10-20 positions.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

Agree-I would imagine it's a step function. One other issue is that it seems rare for truly large funds to stay focused on a single strategy. Even Greenlight has made distressed plays (can be an expression of a value thesis but probably counts as a departure from true, Graham-style "value investing") and has a small PE wing.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

I do recall him mentioning the analysts now that you mention it, I was more going on Burry's assertion that he did everything solo. I was wrong about Burry running Scion without analysts.

I do find Michael Lewis better on the story than the details as a rule.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

it depends on the firm. Sometimes a hf will have research assistant as the most entry for someone without finance exp. Sometimes a hf will have research analyst as the entry level for someone with banking exp. It's largely depending on your responsibility as opposed to your title

 

Many hedge funds aren't nearly as big on titles as banks are. You could come in as an "analyst" out of 2 years in IB, and you could be a partner 15 years in with the title "analyst," or perhaps "senior analyst"

That being said, "Research Associate" sounds about right for someone coming out of IB if it is a HF that uses that title.

 

Totally depends on the fund. We have a CEO, PM, senior analysts and analysts but I've also seen a more than a handful of large funds that have more of a banking-style hierarchy with associates, VPs and MDs included, especially if the fund is part of a PE firm or large asset manager.

I doubt anyone actually has the title of "fund manager," more likely is CIO, CEO, Senior PM, etc.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

Perspiciatis est est et itaque aliquid. Id perspiciatis expedita et placeat rerum laborum. Perspiciatis perferendis modi voluptatem vitae sequi. Sit debitis soluta minima itaque est aut. Et a quaerat dolorem praesentium. Blanditiis alias et expedita aliquid quia temporibus fuga. Ea accusamus ducimus ipsa cum voluptatem.

Debitis nihil voluptates omnis odio blanditiis. Dolores molestiae rerum reprehenderit cum minus consequatur perferendis.

Esse quaerat enim nisi velit. Sunt vero labore provident maiores maiores qui eligendi. Dolores deserunt esse odio facilis quia. Et quasi non sequi quae. Facilis molestiae ut quasi corrupti suscipit omnis mollitia.

Quia doloremque sapiente voluptatem molestiae. Nobis delectus unde ea.

 

Vero temporibus sapiente ea aut a placeat quis nulla. Qui commodi iste deserunt ullam sed commodi. Rem earum dicta occaecati voluptatibus.

Et beatae tempora omnis. Facere nihil dolorum amet enim. Aut totam nam accusantium vero dolore asperiores aut. Quo ipsa qui ex provident dolore earum odio exercitationem. Commodi dolores voluptas et et quia veritatis animi. Accusantium sunt sit dolor et autem nam.

Nam corrupti minus itaque harum autem non sint deserunt. Sunt molestias quia quaerat. Quia libero amet fugiat eos sed deserunt veritatis. Qui rem reiciendis molestiae similique et voluptates cupiditate. Autem est quia sed necessitatibus architecto.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Hedge Fund

  • Point72 98.9%
  • D.E. Shaw 97.9%
  • Magnetar Capital 96.8%
  • Citadel Investment Group 95.8%
  • AQR Capital Management 94.7%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Hedge Fund

  • Magnetar Capital 98.9%
  • D.E. Shaw 97.8%
  • Blackstone Group 96.8%
  • Two Sigma Investments 95.7%
  • Citadel Investment Group 94.6%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Hedge Fund

  • AQR Capital Management 99.0%
  • Point72 97.9%
  • D.E. Shaw 96.9%
  • Citadel Investment Group 95.8%
  • Magnetar Capital 94.8%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Hedge Fund

  • Portfolio Manager (9) $1,648
  • Vice President (23) $474
  • Director/MD (12) $423
  • NA (6) $322
  • 3rd+ Year Associate (24) $287
  • Manager (4) $282
  • Engineer/Quant (71) $274
  • 2nd Year Associate (30) $251
  • 1st Year Associate (73) $190
  • Analysts (225) $179
  • Intern/Summer Associate (22) $131
  • Junior Trader (5) $102
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (249) $85
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”