Mod Note (Andy): #TBT Throwback Thursday - this was originally posted on 3/24/13.
So I've seen a few posts lately asking about mutual funds, Asset Management gigs, and alternatives to the sell-side out of college, and hopefully my experience taking the asset management route to hedge fund rather than banking can help people get a better idea of what the expectations will be like.
Top Asset Management Firms To Work For
I'll be clear early on, I worked at the type of asset management firm that's tough to classify. I like to consider this class of AM firm as a "top asset manager" or a "boutique asset management firm" or something along those lines. In a thread about Third Avenue (one such asset manager), West Coast Rainmaker does an excellent job breaking down these types of firms and the major ones in one of his comments. Link to that is right here.
These funds tend to go unnoticed/unappreciated/unrecognized by the majority of WSO (and the majority of the younger crowd on Wall Street in general), and are markedly different from the likes of the traditional asset managers such as Fidelity, T. Rowe, Capital Group, Wellington, BlackRock, etc. that I sometimes lump into the "too big to succeed" category. Not that they aren't amazing firms (I'd happily have worked at most of them... not BlackRock though) but they, as West Coast Analyst phrased it, don't provide truly differentiated products in most circumstances. I'll try my best to identify the differences between these and top asset managers that I know of as I go along.
Take a look at the photo below from Three Bell Capital to get an idea of the benefits a boutique firm has to offer.
My background as it relates to AM, briefly: I spent 2006-2008 working for a top asset manager in an investment analyst role working strictly with concentrated long-term equity investments. I got this job through On-Campus Recruiting and think the reason I was able to get their attention was that I had been investing for a very long time and managing money for friends and family for a while, mostly in the same style as they did. Despite their notoriety in the investment community, I had no clue who they were when I interviewed there, and for some reason, I also think that helped during the interview process.
Benefits Of Working For A Boutique Asset Management Firm
Like any type of firm, there are benefits and drawbacks to working for a boutique asset management firm. I will do my best to lay them out for you here.
The Recruiting Process At A Small Asset Management Firm
- Research teams tend to be very small, tight-knit in terms of philosophy, and turnover is extremely low. The advantages to this are pretty clear: the culture does not quickly change and the groups are very friendly/ extremely willing to develop talent from within. That makes them very ideal places to start out. The drawback is also obvious then, as it's very difficult to get your foot in the door and actually find an opportunity to interview since most places are not frequently open to hiring.
- Recruiting practices make it hard to get a job right out of school: Some top AMs will hire through OCR and other direct-from-undergrad means, but most have ad-hoc recruiting practices. Sending out your resume can sometimes be all it takes if you catch them at a lucky time when they're open to hiring, but often they are only looking at certain target schools for their hiring when they need it or will take experienced hires from elsewhere. The key trait these firms look for is a previous appetite for investing (particularly in whatever their style may be) and a virtual certainty that investing is what you plan on making your long-term career.
- Interview processes for these firms are generally casual and very investment-oriented. The behavior questions I remember getting were pretty standard, but a lot of it was geared towards getting a feel for your personality as it relates to being a deep thinker and an investor.
One of the biggest differences I noticed between the recruiting processes of the top AMs and the traditional AMs was that the people at top AMs seem to be MUCH more like genuine intellectuals and learners than people at a place like Fidelity where there might be more of an established process and way of thinking that keeps everyone pretty much doing the same thing.
I had situations during my interviews where the PM interviewing me would literally pull out a pad of paper and start taking notes based on something he didn't know, that I did, about a company he wasn't familiar with or something. They genuinely want to know everything, and it's all very intellectual. Technicals aren't really a big deal per se, but having a pitch and being able to explain your thought process when evaluating a business is extremely important.
Most top AMs are long-term investors, so knowing how to look at a business through that lens is a big deal, much more so than being able to predict a 3-month catalyst that will get you 10%. They don't want 10% once, they want 20% annually for 40 years.
Culture At A Top Asset Management Firm
I think I've covered a decent amount of the culture within my recruiting rant - my apologies - but I'll quickly stress the things that I noticed compared to my experience at hedge funds or with people at traditional AMs. There's the intellectual component, then there's the stress on talent development (biggest plus to working at one of these places), and the last part that I haven't mentioned yet is another big one... most analysts at these types of funds aren't a very social bunch.
Watch the video below about boutique asset managment firms.
Autonomy is a huge part of the job, as the smaller the research team the more responsibility each analyst has to take on (and the fewer people to micromanage you). I can say that even two weeks into the job out of college I was meeting with clients who had separately managed accounts with us, grilling top sell-side analysts, and meeting CEOs for lunches.
These guys really gave me no time to grow up and put me right in the fire from day one. While I love this, some people might not be able to handle it but most of the time their recruiting practices select people who can. The downside to this level of responsibility/autonomy is that people aren't really spending any time during the day just chatting or being social.
Now, we spent a lot of time talking with one another about businesses and what we were working on, but we didn't spend much time hanging out outside of work (some of us did, but really not nearly as frequently as I do with my coworkers now) and there's not much room for personal life conversation either. Outside of the social aspect, it also sucks that you can start working on an idea and run with it for 3-4 weeks without a single person walking into your office to tell you it's a good or bad idea. Then all the sudden your PM might suggest moving on to another project and you've wasted a month on a single idea. So if you're not proactive in checking out your progress, you can potentially get fucked.
What's It Like Working For A Boutique Asset Management Firm?
The autonomy, like most else involving top asset managers, was good and bad. Now depending on who you are, the way it affects your actual daily work will vary. Right from the start (and even as an intern) we were all given the same job title as Analysts and had more or less the same general responsibilities. With such a small team and an enormous amount of ground to cover in the equity space, analysts are expected to source their own ideas and to do it well. From day one you come up with your own ideas, do your own research, and figure it all out on your own.
If you don't know how, tough shit, you're probably gonna get fired then. Asking for help isn't looked down upon, but it certainly will slow down your process and make you look a lot less desirable than someone who can put out solid research on a potentially-attractive business. We had an analyst start pitching a gaming company and I don't think anyone took him seriously for at least 3 months after that.
The talent at the level of most of the top AMs, particularly the PMs, truly tops on Wall Street in a lot of areas. Being surrounded by the kinds of investors who run these funds can be a huge bonus to your career in terms of developing into a smarter investor and piecing together the investment processes of multiple successful managers to form your own unique philosophy is worth working for them for free, honestly. I never really thought of my work as "actual work" because of how enjoyable it was working with these type of people, so it's hard to dive into specifics.
I could obviously write about all the stuff I did and it would take 90 pages, but that would be a waste... so I'll save questions for the comments and try to answer them as best I can if anyone has any.
Lifestyle Pros And Cons Of A Boutique Firm
This is the one area that I think really separates top AMs from their peers. Just about everyone in the firm, including the PMs, is in between 8:30 and 9:00 am, and out around 5:00 pm... with 6:00 pm considered "staying late" and 7:00 pm is an all-nighter. I never worked a weekend my entire time at the firm, and analysts routinely shot 4:00 pm emails to the research team to let them know they'd be working from home the next day.
As long as you get your shit done and you get it done well, nobody really cares where you do it, honestly. I've heard this sentiment echoed at other top AMs, but never at traditional asset managers. Another big difference is that the top AMs (probably just a function of smaller analyst headcount) usually have very flat structures where everyone is pretty much on the same level except the PMs, though even they tend to prefer their analyst duties to their PM duties.
So hours are great, you're typically treated very well by your coworkers, face time is nonexistent, and the only real way that I've ever seen analysts come in feeling like they hate their job or their coworkers is when there wasn't a cultural fit in the first place and someone fucked up in the hiring process. It's really a hard gig not to like, hence the super low turnover.
How Does Compensation Compare At Small Firms
My personal experience with compensation was that my firm actually paid a bit above what my investment banking buddies at top shops were getting all-in, but other data points and experience has me putting the typical compensation numbers at or very slightly above street level. Salaries tend to be higher than banking, but like most AM firms the bonuses are significantly lower.
At the end of the day, you're working basically a 9 to 5, so the slightly lower comp isn't gonna kill you and the exit opportunities are the same or better than banking if your ultimate goal is moving to a hedge fund or other asset manager that matches the investing style of your AM firm. In this environment, I would expect something like 80-90k base salary and a bonus in the 20-30% range for top AM firms, though it could be slightly lower if things have changed significantly.
My salary was higher than that and my bonus was slightly above the 30% mark my first year, but that was 2006. After a few years, those numbers go up pretty significantly, and I know for fact our highest-paid non-PM analyst (though he handled some separately managed accounts like most senior analysts) was getting all-in comp north of $3.5M, which you can't really complain about.
Summary
All in all, top AMs are an amazing place to start an investing career. An intellectual culture that wants their young talent to develop and succeed, an attractive compensation structure, very easy hours, and great excellent opportunities all make them highly desirable but extremely difficult to get hired.
I'll try my best to answer anything I didn't cover in the comments.
Read More About Asset Management At WSO
- AM VS. HF: The Business of our Business
- Asset Management VS Investment Banking: What Are They?
- Q&A- I'm An Equity Analyst/PM At An Asset Manager
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Hearing about jobs like this keeps me going; it sounds too good to be true. I'm still kicking myself for not even applying for an internship at a Ruane, Cuniff & Goldfarb-spinoff. I actually bought into the "markets are perfectly efficient" line in academia for years.
How did your fund view diversification? I have a ton of respect for guys like Berkowitz who commit to their best ideas. But (a) that doesn't leave much for a junior hire to do, and (b) a lot of retail investors fear that kind of volatility.
I would guess running a diversified (75+ position) fund lets makes it easier to ignore short term volatility. Especially if you are investing in traditional "value" stocks, you are probably buying into some pretty troubled companies that may fall further before correcting.
We were in the "diversification is for idiots" square, and as my boss used to always say, your best 6 ideas will be better than your next 100. We tended to invest less in the cigarette-butt value stocks and more in the high quality businesses at fair prices kind of value stocks that you could hold for 20 years and just know this is an excellent business that will keep compounding its earnings growth and give us a return for a long, long time. As for limiting what a junior guy can do, I don't think it necessarily does that. While we only held like 15 positions, every analyst is still looking at 1-3 ideas that aren't actually positions, and we research those extremely heavily before they get put into the fund, and the real reason why analysts stay busy is simply that the more excellent businesses you can identify, the better. If an analyst spends 2 months figuring out that XYZ Corp is an excellent business worth owning, but the stock doesn't get cheap for another 7 months and you end up buying it, that guy's 2 months were actually extremely productive. The more knowledge the better was always our motto.
What is the performance of your fund? Like, after fees, relative to the market, how are you guys doing? Am asking because I just read the hedge fund mirage and generally think that investment managers don't add value.
At the risk of giving away where I worked, our annualized return to date over multiple decades of life was in the high teens. The firm I work at now is much newer, but in aggregate, also high teens for a little over a decade. I always subscribe to the theory that the right kinds of managers do add value, however on average the whole may not.
Had you stayed in your old firm, we probably would have met in 2010 when we were doing a NDR.
Impressive pedigree..you Wharton kids get everything handed on a silver platter :P
Honestly after seeing the amount or grind and hustle that kids on this site have explained having to go through to get internships and full time opportunities, I almost resent my alma mater for how badly the ease of access to top jobs was taken for granted by a lot of students. I like to think I worked pretty hard and had a genuine interest in the jobs I was able to get as a result of going to a top school but a lot of my peers really didn't. So many intelligent kids went there because they knew they were smart and could go anywhere they wanted, and decided they might want to go into business because it pays really well, so they decide on Wharton because it's thought to be the best for business at the undergrad level. Then two years into their college educations they realize they never wanted it to begin with and either disappear into something retarded or end up swallowing their happiness and just plodding along into banking, taking the spots from much hungrier kids who actually wanted it 100x more. It's almost ridiculous, and I seriously admire a lot of the kids on here who will read the stuff I write and come back with some really great questions and seem to aspire to have the same opportunities that I had, which I totally took for granted. It really is amazing and I think we're going to see a shift at some point where the backgrounds of Wall Street are going to look a lot more diverse than they historically have. And I'd welcome that.
Really it is very nice post. Thanks for a great efforts
A friend of mine from school is thinking of applying to b school. He works in research at a top asset management firm. Based solely on his work experience and the brand name of his company, what would be his chances at h/s/w?
Could you name some firms that you would consider top AM? I am having trouble distinguishing them from your big AM like Fidelity and Wellington
Guggenhiem...
From West Coast Rainmaker's post in the thread "Third Avenue Management"
No, man, it wouldn't. It would be fucking gold.
Straight from my head!
What's the average age that most analysts in the AM world get their CFA - How quickly does that rocket you to a PM gig? Are internship positions at AM/IM firms usually equity research roles? Do you have a specific view on Equity vs FI oriented firms?
Sorry for the barrage of questions. I interned at a boutique IM firm over my past Freshman Winter/Spring break, though 80% of what I did was data entry, they did toss me into the mix in multiple client meetings (with BB names) because the PM I worked for wanted a college students view on Apple vs Samsung when discussing AAPL holdings.
Really loved it there, currently looking for other options for the summer since they can't keep me.
Average age... maybe 23-24? Most places will either not give a shit whether or not you get your CFA, or they will really encourage it (e.g. T Rowe) and get you on track to get it right when you start working, so if you entered out of undergrad they'd probably help you to have it within 2-3 years. I don't know how much that helps you get to a PM role and I think your individual performance is obviously the bigger part of it. I'd say 8-10 years might be the average to get into an actual position where you're managing capital. Could be much earlier, could be much later depending on firm. I'm always biased towards equities because it's all I know and have ever done, but I'm sure fixed income can be great if that's your thing, and PIMCO is beastly obviously so they must be doing something right in the FI space.
What sort of material/books would you recommend reading and learning to be able to knock AM interviews out of the park (As far as technicals go)? Or is what you posted in your OP about interviews really all there is to it?
Thanks BH!
Nice thread. thanks.
Most of the funds BH/westcoast mentioned sound like equity L/S focused, with the exception of dodge&cox which he mentioned has some FI.
Does anyone have the equivalent list for top boutique AM's (intellectual culture, willing to teach you how to invest, more focused on performance rather than asset-gathering, etc.) that run macro/ficc (basically non-equity) strategies?
I recently moved from SS ER to the BS as an analyst. I believe my new firm falls into the category of a top shop, despite our ultra-low profile. We're about $10 billion in AUM, focused on absolute return, run a pretty concentrated portfolio (typically top 1-2 shareholder in our portfolio companies), and the work is very autonomous. My experience to date is very similar to what BlackHat outlined above.
There's a lot I would like to say but I don't want to hijack the thread and I do want to go to sleep.
But, it may be helpful to some in here to realizes that lot of different funds describe themselves as value oriented investors. Usually, how a fund defines value typically falls into 1 of 3 buckets:
1) Free cash flow yield/coupon investors. This would be guys like Berkowitz. 2) Distressed value investors 3) NAV investors. This would be like Third Avenue and this is the style my new firm falls into.
BlackHat, I'm curious to know how your old firm/new firm define value? Your OP makes me wonder if you've had a pretty similar experience from the perspective of calculating NAV to quantify downside risk.
We're really in the most oldschool Buffet-esque style of value investing you could think of. We spend months researching businesses and usually aim to understand them about as well as anybody not in the C-suite, and then usually rely on Mr. Market to come to us one day with a fair or good price for the business at which point we like to pile in. I wouldn't really call it the NAV method nor would I call it the FCF method, and certainly not the distressed view either... but really a combination of them all into just being able to identify what an excellent business looks like and what a fair price to pay for it might be. We don't have target prices, we want to hold businesses forever and grow our capital alongside them, so we're definitely not saying "this business sells for X today but is worth Y. Let's wait til it's worth Y and then sell it for a profit." We would rather say "this business is so good that it will grow at X forever. We can buy it today and see a Y annual return or we could wait and if we get it at Z we can get a better return." And we of course fall into the camp that says we're owning the business not the stock, so we don't really care about the price of the shares so long as earnings or whatever major metrics we care about are growing the way we want them to.
This is good stuff. We should talk some more about this in the future.
I'm gonna go to sleep before I get carried away. I hate walking in sleepy on Monday's.
But I think that you should write a little about why you wish you had stayed longer at the AM.
Many of the people on here know that you left b.c. its a HF and your experience wasn't that great (until you moved into your currently role). I think it would be valuable if you explained what you think you could have learned staying at the AM and maybe how your career path could have been differently.
Again, this is a great thread. I wanted to make something similar to this once I have a little bit more experience with our process. But, it's worth stressing again: shops like these are better than the VAST majority of HFs.
Great post.
What do you think of PIMCO/where does it fall in relative to traditional asset manager vs boutqiue
PIMCO is one of the largest managers in the world. They're top two, with DoubleLine, on the fixed income side. I hear that they underpay their analysts b/c the brand name is so valuable.
They've been building out an equity strategy with pretty limited success: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-23/neel-kashkari-says-he-s-leavin…
PIMCO is one of the largest managers in the world. They're top two, with DoubleLine, on the fixed income side. I hear that they underpay their analysts b/c the brand name is so valuable.
They've been building out an equity strategy with pretty limited success: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-23/neel-kashkari-says-he-s-leavin…]
What you heard is correct, especially on an hourly basis. Recruitment policy is very stringent about hiring with flat comp (i.e. no pay bump, you're extra comp is the brand). Pay is typically 15-20% below market for similar AM positions across the board. Your minimum work day is 10 hours. Long and early hours are definitely encouraged (Gross & El-Erian boast about how little sleep they get), 4AM is early & 6AM is typical. Most people start leaving by 5:30 and its generally empty by 7PM).
Really useful and insightful post BlackHat, much appreciated.
May I ask why you said you wouldn't mind working for any of the traditional AM firms, but not for BlackRock?
Secondly, since you mention the teams are pretty small and tight-knit in top AM firms, would you say that if you don't get in straight from undergrad it's very hard breaking in later? Would they hire post-MBA? (I'm in London if that makes a significant difference)
I'm currently looking at taking a prop trading role, but I guess my end interests lie within Asset Management. Would you say starting off in a trading role if I wanted to break into Asset Management later is particularly bad? I realise it's probably not the most common of routes, but would you say its actually a hindrance?
I don't want to speak for BlackHat here, but I am guessing because their culture is pretty horrible. Massive and bureaucratic, while still demanding facetime and 80+ hour weeks.
I'd personally agree with BlackHat. Would not work at BlackRock.
Have heard some negative things about Fidelity too (long hours, very competitive, somewhat political). Though I've also met people that like it there. I can't say the same about BlackRock; I have never met a happy BlackRock employee.
Exactly. You have permission to speak for me from now on.
Awesome post. I'm curious how the odds are coming into a boutique AM later in the game? Say 2-4 years out of MBA with ER exp. Also how is that type of background looked upon by the guys in AM boutiques? Thanks.
This'll be addressed at everyone asking the "what are my chances if I'm ___ years out of school, post-MBA, etc." type questions.
They certainly hire people at what is considered the "junior level" (i.e. anything up to but no more than about 5 years out of school or 3 years out of MBA) but not as often since you usually have to pay those people a lot more than an entry-level kid and they can often have the same level of ability as analysts since you'll be molding them a bit into thinking the way your fund thinks anyway. The firm I worked at had hired a guy out of a credit fund who was post-MBA and he was ultimately considered a junior hire even though he was in his mid-20s I believe. So it definitely happens and it's not horribly uncommon either, and as long as whatever you're doing can line up well with the philosophy of the AM firm, you definitely have a shot.
Every preftigious highschooler on the east coast is going to tell their friends this weekend they will work in AM and make $3.5M before age 30. They will then proceed to laugh at the other guys.
In all seriousness, great write up. If you have time BH, can you let us know what happens when an investment thesis tanks? Give some examples in your case, or those of other analysts.
This is a tough one. I've never had a conviction call blow up in my face but I'm going to assume that would be just an amplification of what I'll describe anyway.
I recommended a retailer long right before earnings because I'd always liked the company and this was the earnings announcement that would set the stock off if they knocked it out of the park. I gave my PM the skinny on the trade, told him that you'd see 100% upside over the next few quarters or so if they beat and something like 25% downside if we sold on a miss. He was interested but ultimately said he didn't feel like making a trade like that since it wasn't his expertise. I told him that's fine, and ended up coming back to him and telling him even though I still liked the company to beat, it probably wouldn't be a good idea anyway and it wasn't a big deal to me. Sure enough he decides to put the trade on without telling me. Earnings miss heavy and the stock sells off harder than 25%. The dumbass decides to hold and we lose another 10% on it for a total loss in the 30-30% range before he finally got out. Naturally it's attributed to me and I have to live with shitting on our team's performance for the near-term.
Having to explain yourself to people that know nothing about the trade after the fact is one of the most painful things to do because everyone just hits you with the 20/20 hindsight and keeps asking the "how did you think ___" question. It's a pain in the ass but it's a necessary evil. So of course I have to explain myself to my PM's boss, my PM again for some reason (he was pretending to not know much, it was great), and my peer analysts. That part isn't the worst though, the toughest part is that your next few ideas all get second-guessed because your blowup is still fresh in everyone's mind, and unless you start seeing some success with your next ideas, you could be on the chopping block... and no matter how good you are or how long you've been around, that thought does cross your mind from time to time even if it's not reality, which makes it tough to walk into work sometimes. Like many others on WSO have said before, HFs are stressful and AMs are no different if you blow it. This example is from an HF obviously but I think if I had an investment thesis blow up at my AM I would have been out the door immediately. The whole point there was that you do so much research that it's almost impossible to be wrong, or at least that's the thinking.
This is what scares me to be honest. I love analyzing companies, learning how the world works, and investing, but I'm uncomfortable with the amount of chance involved. The more I read about EMH, the less conviction I have in my ideas. This isn't a troll post, I'm honestly curious (will be working in SS ER this summer). How do you handle this/what are your thoughts on EMH?
I actually have some questions regarding "The whole point there was that you do so much research that it's almost impossible to be wrong, or at least that's the thinking".
I'm working in a top HF but not in an investment team. Because of the nature of my work, I know the performance/timing of all the strategies. I can say at least 1/3 of strategies don't make money and it is pretty often to see strategies blowing up (say short heinz before Buffett step in). Not sure if it is the case at everywhere but it is pretty hard to image "always correct at investment" when you have billion of assets under management
Great post.
Curious about post-MBA hiring. Do most of them actually hire post-MBA people to investment associate roles?
Great stuff!
Excuse my ignorance, by why is this?
Maybe you could get a little more granular on comp. How old is the Non-PM analyst? $125k to $3.5MM is a big gap to bridge. Take a non MBA guy in his late 20's, equivalent to a senior associate on IBD side. What are they pulling in AM?
The guy is mid 50s, so with a 30+ year age gap the compensation gap is understandable hopefully. I'd say a non MBA who's been at the fund since he left undergrad in his late 20s would probably pull down something like 500-600k with some cushion to the upside on that if they're good. The thing about these types of AM firms is they aren't very institutionalized and they don't have set career tracks the way an investment bank would or the way a traditional AM like Fidelity would. So you're going to get paid the minimum amount required to keep you usually, which can be very high if you're good or somewhat lower if that's not the case. Most of the time your exit opps are pretty damn good out of top AMs so the price to keep you is higher.
Did any analysts from your firm go to top business schools and is there any benefit of going to business school within top AM firms?
I was wondering how HF recruiting is structured from these top AM firms? Is it as standardized as IB? I know a lot of HF recruit from investment banks, but it would make more sense to me if they actually recruited investment analysts from these AM firms
Very loose and ad hoc. If you contact a headhunter (or in my case get contacted by one) you usually have just as good a chance as anyone to get a gig at an HF since people rarely leave these funds and when they do people will want to at least talk to you if they've heard of / respect your fund. I'd say it's not as streamlined as IB but your chances are just as good if you're active about searching for opportunities.
BH, or anyone else with top AM experience, how competitive is the job market for these and more traditional AM firms in comparison to IB, particularly at the undergrad level?
Thanks so much for posting this and a link to west coast's thread. Very intriguing obviously. I hate to "ride your dick" BH but you continually have the best posts that are actually useful and first-hand experience.
Just a broad question, do you know of any top asset managing boutiques in say Australia?
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Although I come from a target school... the experience of competing against over 500 candidates for every position is a very humbling experience.
@KarateBoy: I think you would like hearing this... but my firm (very small) prioritizes hunger/interest and quality of experience much more than any brand name. I am always disappointed when I see a resume with 3.9+ gpa from a decent school with a bb experience... when they talk about it and you realize that they didn't do anything at all and the bank was using them to do monkey work. It still confounds me how finance funnels some of the top minds to churn out excel monkeys. Complete waste of brainpower and talent. This obviously doesn't apply to everyone with that gpa and bb experience, but every time I do hear about one a part of me breaks on the inside.
Absolutely awesome post BlackHat. Thanks so much for this, it was super informative.
SB--happy to see thatAM gets some coverage on this site despite its IB/PE skew