Asset Manager vs Asset Management in a BB

Taking an investment role at a bank backed AM vs. an independent AM, day to day wise, will be largely similar. A credit analyst covering financials, say, will have a ton of banks they cover (number might vary). They'll look at various tenors of credits, work with PM's on recommendations for their sector, what looks attractive, what doesn't. You get the drift - it's a good place to start and, since it's a bank, you'll have a big name on your resume. JPMAM is a very well respected name, they are a behemoth. To be clear - more context below - I think that you should absolutely not be scared to spend a few years, or longer, with a large bank backed AM. Great name on your CV, good experience, tons of connections, and big time experience that you can take to smaller shops who love having big names on resumes they hire. 

One step out from day to day - what will vary are the types of strategies you are working on. Most banks offer all the plain vanilla stuff across equities and fixed income. You often aren't buying exotic securities, and depending on the bank you will have more or less things that you offer. Some have larger sustainable investing offerings, some more alternatives, others may be more or less aggressive in how they manage a specific strategy. This is largely driven by the types of clients that they cater to, and sometimes how the business is setup - is the AM placed within the broader wealth franchise, is it separate, etc. 

This gets towards strategy and how AM's think of themselves. Bank backed AM's are, often, captives to the bank - they are a fee income generating franchise, a business of the bank, and a capture point for client assets. Depending on the clients - those capture points will vary. This is good from a distribution perspective, it's more scalable as you have less costs for distribution and far more warm leads - bankers are bringing you clients, you are adding value, deepening the relationship, etc. It can be challenging as it can constrain your mandates and influences what you offer into the marketplace. AM's are simply one more business, as others have noted. it impacts how the firm makes investments - you could be a 'cost center' vs. value add - it just depends on what the bank needs, is fee revenue valued or not, how is the rest of the bank doing, etc. It's harder to make long term, strategic decisions - i.e. reduced profits, etc. - to keep talent or invest in a new strategy as the bank is often a 'what have you done for me lately' and 'if it's not helping me - stop doing it - I have quarterly earnings to meet'. Think about MS buying Eaton Vance - part of that is driven by MS already distributing a ton of the EV funds across their RIA business, add in parametric and Calvert - you have yourself a more unified distribution network with the product in house, and capture all the fees vs. part of the fees. 

Finally - the bad news for a bank owned AM. You are owned by a bank. The bank is what matters - they will protect their brand, franchise, and business before anything. That means a bad quarter for M&A activity or mismanagement of the balance sheet ends up on your plate with cost containment, layoffs, or other issues. You have compliance, risk, oversight, and scrutiny just by virtue of working for a bank. It's manageable, but it's the reality. From a career perspective what does this mean? Less flexibility - in my opinion - for banks to keep talent long term, as you are more beholden to the overall rules that are written for tens of thousands of people. 

Anyway - that's a lot. I think I said similar things in another thread.