Asset management divisions of investment banks

Sandhurst happyivey:

Hi Sandhurst,

What is the reputation of Allianz on the street? I know it is one of the largest asset managers in the world because of their great insurance business, but I am wondering how having a summer internship there compares with BB or other American AM firms such as BlackRock and Fidelity.

Thank you so much!

happyivey

I will qualify this with the caveat that I am not an authority on the category of large diversified fund management complexes to which you seem to be referring. That said, it is my impression that all three enjoy strong reputations, but of course it depends. Assuming that you are interested in portfolio management, I will say the following based on my understanding / interaction with friends at such firms.

At BlackRock, you want to avoid the (admittedly, growing and darling) iShares / passive platforms, and ideally gravitate towards equity or high yield products. I won't dwell on particulars, since BLK sort of does everything. As such, I don't think it's about working at the "firm" as a whole, so much as finding the right spot within it.

Same goes for Fidelity, although the firm is generally speaking weighted more heavily although by no means exclusively towards these products. Also, they are privately held, and take famously good care of their employees (and clients, by the way). Plenty of folks take jobs there as graduates and don't leave until they retire. Word on the street is Fidelity primarily sources top talent internally for its "Devonshire Investments" proprietary PE / special investments fund - which is perhaps one of the better places to spend one's career.

I don't know much about Franklin Tempelton. So, I'll leave it at that.

Allianz is not just an insurer - in the vein of AXA, they have a significant outward-facing Asset Management business (although without AXA's vast retail brokerage). Their insurance asset management orientation is going to be very fixed-income heavy. That said, if you are going to be a bond manager (note I don't mean this negatively, just that I expect most here won't), Allianz's PIMCO is certainly one of the better places to do it. And not just because its located on a golf course by the beach outside LA. While his performance / AUM has flagged recently, Bill Gross' PIMCO Total Return fund is the most successful bond fund, and one of the most successful of all mutual funds, in history.

Edit: Oh, and to answer your question, which I seem to have forgotten - as always, it depends. Also, when you ask how do internships at such firms compare to those atbulge bracket firms - I will assume you are are referring to bulge bracket Asset Management asset management (i.e. not comparing BLK to investment banking).

In broad strokes, representing the so-called bulge bracket, GSAM and JPMAM are top asset management firms. GSAM a better regarded a alternatives platform, whereas JPMAM is something like twice as large by AUM and continues to grow under highly impressive CEO Mary Erdoes. Otherwise, the "bulge bracket" asset managers as a whole, to the extent that they continue to exist - Citi, BofA Merrill, etc have long since divested their complexes - are not particularly better or worse than the broader universe of fund management complexes.

I see, and that is exactly what I was wondering. Thank you so much Sandhurst for the thorough overview on the asset managers. I never knew Fidelity has a separate PE arm, and I guess for internship purposes, I need to look into the right groups in each of the asset managers!

Thank you again!