University Endowment Fund Analyst
Interested in hearing your guys opinions on what values there are in seeking a part-time investment analyst position at a university endowment fund. I just want to point out that I want to do this solely for experience in long-term value investing and asset management. The endowment fund is >= $20 billions, if that helps narrow down anything.
What would be the pros / cons of working this position? Would this be worth it if I already have something lined up for the summer? This and the summer internship (multi-strategy HF) would be focused on different styles of investing.
Appreciate the thoughts
In general, most university endowment funds manage their money through select asset managers, which occasionally may include a hedge fund or alternative investment platform. In this sense, endowment funds are really responsible for keeping track of the value of their distributed endowments and how they are performing; as well as seeking out new managers and getting rid of underperforming ones.
University endowments differ slightly from the average investor in that their main goal really is not to blow up and match the gains of the market; as opposed to needing an outperform. This may differ by endowment manager, but this is a pretty common sentiment on the AM side. For this reason, endowments are more like a fund-of-funds product with a large blend of assets managed by different AM's, and individual investments in bonds and stocks, but more of the former and less of the latter.
I think you can always learn no matter where you are, so there's no harm in taking the internship. You'll probably gain some valuable exposure to different investing styles and learn how certain products (Large-Cap vs Small-Cap, Growth vs Value) function.
Agree with the above.
It's a good starting position to get your feet wet and learn about the industry. You would probably see different asset classes or at least different managers within an asset class, so that's valuable. Assuming it wouldn't severely cut into your academics, I would take the position. Endowments are usually pretty laid back so I doubt the workload would be anything intense.
If endowment AUM is $20B+, it's Harvard, Yale, Stanford or Princeton.
There are few better credentials for an entry level position at an AM firm or HF than interning at one of the biggest endowments. If it's Yale, you'd be able to name-drop David Swensen for your whole career.
Agreed. It's not like you'd be interning at some no name college's endowment fund. Although, I've always dreamed of working at an endowment fund for an awesome party school in the middle of nowhere. Even if they only paid me $150k per yr, that's like $300k per yr in NYC and I can bang 18 yr old college chicks until I get old and fat.
What is your end game? However, gaining perspective of an "ultimate" investor and top institution would be invaluable no matter what career path you take. You would learn how LPs think, gain relationships that could prove extremely valuable down the line, and obtain a general understanding of asset allocation which at the end of the day is what really drives returns for individuals and institutional investors alike.
Endowment Info (Pay/Culture) etc (Originally Posted: 03/25/2013)
Was wondering if anyone had some insight into the pay at large endowments (Harvard/Yale/Penn) etc... I know the work is mostly manager selection and outsourcing as oppose to directly picking investment like a traditional AM firm.
Was wondering what the pay scale and bonus would be for someone with 2-3 yrs experience. Especially interested in the bonus figures, as I would expect it to be much lower than a traditional AM firm???
Thanks.
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I work at one of the largest endowments/foundations in the U.S. as an associate after 2 years of BB equity research. Associates here make somewhere in the $90K-120K range base depending on experience and bonus somewhere in the $30-50K range. Keep in mind that this is with 40-50 hour work weeks and perks that are unparalleled, as far as I can tell. You're a client of both the buy side and the sell side, so you get access to information and events from both sides, even when you're very junior (plus a fair bit of international travel without much penny pinching - business/first class, nicest hotels - but it's infrequent enough that it's not a burden). MDs probably make 600k-$1mil all in, and CIO types $1mil-$2mil+. I wouldn't go back to a bank for 2x the pay. There aren't many available positions and these places tend to recruit a bit under the radar, so you won't hear much about the job on forums like this, but I highly recommend that you accept an offer from one unless you're absolutely set on something else very specific for some reason.
Endowment Fund Intern (Originally Posted: 12/26/2013)
I just accepted a paid offer to intern from January 2014 to January 2015 for my university's endowment/retirement fund, which is comprised of approximately 4.1b AUM. I will personally be working with the woman (literally our desks touch) who handles the Alternative Investments portion of the portfolio which runs at a cool 900 million. Within alternative investments they are focused entirely on Hedge Funds, VC, and PE. The biggest perk of the job is that I get to sit in on every client meeting that takes place in our office, as well as a paid trip to either NYC or SF. The last intern got to meet Mohamed El-Erian and Bill Gross of PIMCO.
It is a relatively new program with only 3 interns coming before me. As of now the first two have both placed into the buyside and the third is still in school, one at a hedge fund in St. Louis and another at an Asset Management firm in NYC. This is a huge deal being that I am at a non target Midwestern university.
I wanted to see if anyone on here had any experience in this capacity, and could share thoughts/experiences. The interviewers were very vague on what I would be doing, the only things they mentioned was reading managers notes and doing some macros and modeling
So you go to Mizzou...You'll most likely be doing a lot of due diligence on managers/funds. Probably includes some reporting, reading of marketing materials, investor letters, etc. Might be asked to monitor macro environment (not just economics but also current asset allocation/strategies/performance of endowments and alternative investments of endowments.)
Didn't know Mizzou's endowment was that big... was gonna guess Rice until you said midwest...
The Endowment is approximately 1 billion, but the Retirement Fund is over 3 billion and they are run by the same team
Interning at My School's Endowment Fund. Pass or Go? (Originally Posted: 06/22/2013)
The job is more of an "administrative assistant" than "Asset Management analyst intern". Answering phones, scanning documents, that whole thing But I figured it might be worth pursuing for these reasons:
So what do you guys think?
Interested as well.
If it's with Swenson's fund I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Take it if it's your only option. Any finance is better than none.
if you're a freshmen with nothing on your resume than i dont see how it can hurt, the problem is for finance roles you're competing with all the other dorks who had Summer analyst positions before they even started college
Do it. At the very least you learn a lot about the business and industry. If you do a good job they can put you in touch with their contacts at the top AM shops.
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