Hey everyone,

Been following the site for a while now and have really appreciated all the posts and the content which is available to someone like me trying to excel and succeed in such a competitive industry.

I'm about to enter my senior year at a nontarget in NJ and have held two internships already (neither of which were too Finance related) and have just started my third at a pretty successful hedge fund with a little less than $20 billion AUM. I've been learning a lot, but unfortunately my spirits have been brought down due to some of the posts on this site. The internship is under Operations - Equity Trade Support, and from what I can tell it is a BO/MO position (whatever you want to call it), which is pretty upsetting for me although I do love it here.

Fellow Monkeys,

I'm trying to gather a list of event-driven funds in Europe, especially those taking minority positions in merger targets and then litigating for higher squeeze-out payments (or waiting for others to do so).

1) How would you categorize this? "Activist merger arbitrage" as a sub-set of event-driven?

2) Please help me populate my list: So far I confirmed the following funds to do this in Europe:
- Perry Capital
- Davidson Kempner
- DE Shaw
- York Capital
- Elliott

3) Can you confirm / rule out any of the following funds I found in various event-driven / special situations listings? Please comment if they engage in said practices and if so, in Europe?
- Point Frederick
- Glenhill
- Glenview
- Farallon
- Anchorage
- Third Point

I wanted to ping the WSO community and see if there are any users here that are analysts in the Tiger Cub network and would offer some insights.

I work for a L/S fund with a value focus and our analysts have very little interaction with other funds. We spend essentially all of our time in SEC filings, conference call transcripts, research reports, etc doing fundamental, bottoms up work. We are very value-oriented and will buy some businesses that I think are pretty shitty but they are so cheap and we size the bets appropriately. We buy growing businesses at less attractive prices as well but skew more towards that traditional value side.

Offer 1:
Boutique Consulting firm (50-60 people): They mainly do strategy consulting with 3 or 4 big tech companies (think apple, intel, etc). They also do a ton of marketing and some operations consulting.

Offer 2:
An asset management company. Well pwm company doing portfolio analysis. They mainly work with HNW indiduals. 2-4 billion,

Now my problem is this. I think it would be awesome to go into either of these. I have actually never had experience in either consulting or asset management. As far as ultimate career goals i'm not sure. I've always wanted to work for a hedge fund maybe PM. Also doing corporate M&A/strategy and development seems interesting.

Can someone compare these two career paths. As far as pay, lifestyle, competitiveness, stress, job security, etc

I am 28, a Modeling and Simulation scientist at a large biotech company earning >100k/yr. I have been doing this job for two years. The work is highly quantitative and involves building relationships with folks in various departments in the company and solving problems analytically to reduce inefficiencies and cost. I have a PhD in Engineering from a top Ivy League school. I have been a derivative trader for the past 10 years. I want to break into Finance to work for a Hedge Fund. I have been considering few options and I would appreciate your take on them.

1. Full time MBA at a top school and apply through on-campus recruiting and networking. This will cost 150k and an opportunity cost of ~ 250k.
2. Part time MBA at Haas/Stern for ~100k and apply to firms.

Does anybody know how this fund has been performing / how selective it is in comparison to other multi-strategy hedge funds? How many analysts does Farallon hire each year and how long do analysts typically stay at the firm? Any info would be much appreciated.

Any insight on this $3-5bn+ SF hedge fund? All helps, thanks.

I am looking for a list of mid sized Texas hedge funds, in particular I am interested in value oriented funds. Any recommendations would be great!

I (we) are trying to acquire a greater percentage stake in a formerly public company. We currently have a significant control position, but would like to sell the company and require over 90% equity stake to not have to deal with sign-offs from the many disparate shareholders. There are no significant (i.e. greater than .2%) shareholders remaining EXCEPT for "Cede & Co. Depository Trust", which holds around 10%. As far as I can tell, "Cede & Co. Depository Trust" simply represents shares held in street name. My question then is how to track down where these shares are held to potentially acquire the shares we need to get over the 90% equity threshold.

Does anyone know anything about Verizon Investment Management? it sounds like an awesome gig with opportunities in asset management/allocation and what sounds kinda like PE/HF work.

Any advice on how the best way to start working for a hedge fund. I didn't go to any Ivy League school or anything like that and my degree is in Personal Financial Planning. Should I even go for my MBA and is it even worth it for how much grad school cost? Any advice would help.

What is the general reputation, pay, culture, exit ops, etc. of the credit arms of megafunds i.e. Sankaty, TPG Credit, KKR AM, etc.? Looking for information on a pre-MBA associate role.

Any help or insight is much appreciated.

http://www.businessinsider.com/james-altucher-mist...

[quote]When I was 18 I went to college and went about $50,000 in debt. Why would an 18 year old do that to themselves?

I majored in computer science. 8 years later when I got a real job they made me take remedial programming classes after I crashed everyone’s email and trashed the network.

When I was 21 I went to graduate school and got thrown out less than two years later.

They told me when I was “mature” enough I could come back. I don’t know. Maybe one day they will let me back.

When I was 22 – 27 I wrote a bunch of novels and dozens of short stories. All of them were rejected by 40 publishers and probably most of my friends hated them but were embarrassed to tell me.

Just out of curiosity, would love to hear people's views on this:

So many of us finance guys spend all their time worrying about getting into the top group at whatever bank so they can move to mega funds in private equity or big hedge funds, where the lifestyle can be close to if not just as bad as a banker's.

Personally, I always have seen myself ending up at a small fund with a few hundred million bucks under management...3-5 guys in a room, so to speak just slaying it with no bureaucracy. Outside of the 'prestige' and 'status', which no one outside of finance would even understand anyways, what is the appeal for you guys for ending up at a KKR or multi-billion dollar hedge fund in the first place?

I used to work at a hedge fund, but I never handled the paperwork. I am starting my own now with one other person. I have set up an LP to be the investment vehicle, and an LLC that me and my partner each own half of, to be the GP of the LP. I was told this was necessary in order to claim carried interest tax, but why is that, and is that true at all, and what is the purpose of it? Why can't me and my partner each be GP? Or lets say it was a one man operation...what is the advantage of me owning an LLC, and the LLC being the GP of the fund? I could see it making sense if I had multiple funds, but I have only one. Why can't I just be the GP? Why is the extra layer necessary?

I'm working for a BB HFOF (first year out of school) and am wondering if it is possible to move to investment banking. I feel that I do not have a solid skill set for long-term survival in the industry if I stick with HFOF.

Gotta make this quick - at work.

After reading the risible, lambaste worthy & somberful post of "biggest life regrets"

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/the-single-b...

It's evident for MOST of the posters on this forum (whom I'm guessing are <25, 21?) loathe their college decisions, root cause being their high school decisions thus by transitive property loathe high school decisions.

Seems like many people would like a do-over in life because their models & bottles dreams never materialized (or never will). Honestly, thought the posts were hysterical. It seems like it’s too bad that many of you weren’t conceived in Amy Chua’s womb.

Jawad S. Mian, former CIBC and QInvest PM is starting a new global macro fund, The Good Society Fund (TGSF), see this presentation.

Themes
- Developed economy governments insolvent; burdening unemployment becoming a source for increased social and economic strain
- Process of deleveraging and global rebalancing underway
- Increased risk of geopolitical tensions and social conflict (esp. Southeast Asia, with China, the US and Russia battling over influence)
- Central banks tradition of selling off gold reversed to buying in past years

Investment Theses

Hi guys:

I was offered a part-time position (up until the firm moves its office from country X to Y) as an investment analyst at a start-up hedge fund in my city. The position's relevant work experience requirement is 0-1 years, and must have an BBA in finance.

The fund manager is well-known and has quite an impressive track record/background which makes me feel more comfortable about the situation.

My concern is the following:

Should I take this position (despite having zero experience in HFs) and hope I will learn first-hand from the HF manager himself, or should I aim for a full-time gig at a well known and established firm?

Hi guys:

I was offered a part-time position (up until the firm moves it's office from country X to Y) as an investment analyst at a start-up hedge fund in my city. The position's experience requirement is 0-1 year of professional work experience with BA in finance.

The fund manager is well-known and has quite an impressive track record/background which makes me feel more comfortable about the situation.

My concern is the following:

Should I take this position (despite having zero experience in HFs) and hope I will learn first-hand from the HF manager himself, or should I aim for a full-time gig at a well known and established firm?

Hi, fellow monkeys.

I just wanted to seek some advice. I did a MO SA at a semi-BB last summer and have a FT offer in hand. I'm a senior at an NYC non-target, 3.8 GPA.

Recruiting season has been rough and despite talking to anyone and everyone and applying everywhere, I haven't been able to get interviews for IBD/F500/Corp. Fin. I have previous internship experiences in HF/AM. It's very late in the process, but what would you recommend I do now?

The scenarios I see:

1.) Take the MO FT offer and continue to network during FT (and get out as quickly as possible).
2.) Reject the MO FT offer, find an SA, kick ass, and pray I get a FT offer. Note: The likelihood of this is very low.

I work for one of the major oil companies as an FP&A analyst for one of the trade groups in the Commercial organization. I have an interview lined up with one of the major pure physical trading shops (think Vitol, Trafigura, Mercuria, Glencore, etc.) as a risk analyst doing PnL for a commodity group. I think I have a good chance at landing the job but I am not sure if I should leave my current situation or not.

My ultimate goal is HF at some point. Would such a move make sense? Would it help me in any way land that HF gig quicker?

I have noticed that a lot of hedge funds offer two-year analyst programs similar to banking for post-IBD positions. What is the rationale behind that, and is this some sort of a red flag with regards to the kind of experience one might get? I can't shake this feeling that they have two year analyst programs so they can focus less on developing you and get to churn & burn you like in banking. Anyone have any comments on this?

A friend of mine just contacted me about helping him on a potential deal to do marketing for a hedge fund. He owns a small digital marketing firm and has a call with a hedge fund owner (aum ~40mm) next week and wants me to join in on the call, and potentially work part-time on strategy/marketing on the project if the deal is landed. My friend believes because of the jobs act there is a TON of potential for marketing for small hedge funds, so if he lands this client it could really help lead to a lot more business along this line.

I am involved in a start up HF. My partners and I have been talking with an individual to act as an independent marketing consultant/capital raiser. Our arrangement would be that as this individual brings investors to us, we will give them a payout/finders fee. I was wondering if anyone could provide any insight on what capital raisers typically get paid? Is there a industry standard rate on finder fees? Thanks

which is better?

Hey guys, I was wondering if I could get some advice.

I'm on my gap year right now currently doing a boutique AM internship and heading to a top target school in the fall. I know the typical route is IB -> PE/HF but I really want to bypass that completely and go straight to HF after graduation. My plan right now is to leverage my current AM internship to get a more legit PWM internship freshman year, IB internship sophomore and junior year, and try recruiting for HF senior year.

Obviously this is a long shot for me -- but has anyone been able to do this who HASN'T come out of Wharton or ISN'T a Rhodes Scholar (you know how I'm talking about). And seriously, am I reaching too high? And has anyone been able to do this who could give me some tips?