Buy Side to Corporate Development?
Hi there, How often/possible/easy is it to switch from buy side (I have hedge fund & long-only experience) to tech corporate development (ie GOOGL/FB/not startup?) Background: I'm currently at a fund managing $2-5bn, around 1/5th of the book is my ideas at any given time, and I am 6-8 years out of university (did 2 years sell side, buy side rest of the time) and I cover mostly TMT. It has nothing to do with performance which has been solid YTD, I am just getting a bit bored and I'm not sure how much value I'm adding to society, and I am okay with an all-in comp cut. I was thinking it may be interesting to work in the M&A or strategy divisions. Has anyone done this or had experience and did they like their experience? Was it easy? Were there any regrets? Generally what level would someone with my level of experience come in as in terms of title/comp? Thank you very much in advance.
Not much I can add except:
This is interesting to read given I am thinking about going in the reverse direction.
Just curious what makes the job boring for you? I'm doing Corp dev/strat at a public tech company and am getting really bored with corporate life. Hoping to make the transition into ib/PE/hf
I think it should be pretty doable to make the switch as the blue chip tech firms look for ex MBB/ bulge bracket bankers. The buyside experience should translate given that Corp dev is basically "buy-side" since you are investing the firms money into companies that you feel are a good strategic and financial investment.
Thanks guys, I realize maybe I should have said I'm more interested in Corp Strat than Corp Dev if that makes a difference? I'm getting a bit bored where I am because you can analyze a company only so much and then you kind of decide where to invest and wait for everything to play out. And sometimes you analyze a company and think, "this company is solid, and has a lot of growth opportunities, it'd be pretty cool to work there". That's basically my reason for looking into moving.
Also just as a follow on question -as someone with my work experience, what kind of title/comp (assuming blue chip internet company) would be reasonable? Thank you again.
The problem I face in corporate strategy is there's way too much analysis that is performed and nothing is really done with the majority of it. A lot of the time the work is just pushed off to the side by the executives and division heads who constantly change priorities and so a lot of the strategy work I've done so far hasnt really seen the light of day. I'm really bored with work and hoping to make the transition away from corporate.
Based on your 6-8 years of experience I'd say Manager is the title you should expect,
Interesting. Have you considered moving into more of an operating role with your current company? I'm looking at CD as a potential path a few years down the road, and my thinking is that if development or strategy work gets boring that it would be possible to transfer within the same corporation and run a business unit.
not really - prefer a advisory or markets based role at this point and maybe run my own company in the future.
It's certainly very doable to move from Corporate Strategy to an operating role, but less so from a corp dev role.
I think this would be a very easy transition to make. I know someone who went from being a consumer analyst at a L/S Equity fund to Corp Dev at a major consumer products company. Did it through networking at industry conferences and referrals from people in companies' IR department. Not sure on their exact title/rank though.
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