Hi All, currently looking into a role as an Equity Research Associate at Bloomberg Intelligence. -Is the experience comparable to typical sell side research associate? i.e. industry research, modelling, meeting with management teams etc. -Has anyone actually the read the research they produce, what are your opinions? -What is the compensation like, what can one expect as a 1st/2nd year associate? -It seems that some of the Analysts have are ex-BB/ Buyside, while others have less impressive backgrounds, any reason to this?
Any other info regarding culture and hours would be greatly appreciated. Looking on linkedin it looks like former associates have exited to ER at reputable banks as well as a few IBD boutiques
Thanks all!
While I’m not in BI, I do work at Bloomberg in analytics; so I hope I can give an honest, “insider” perspective.
When you think about what equity research does, it’s ultimately to provide an investment recommendation. As a result, there’s a lot of valuation to determine price targets and other estimates backed by meetings with actual companies, financial models and written research. BI barely does only the written research.
Because the entire premise of Bloomberg’s research is to be a third-party source, the department has decided not to quantify price targets. The real reason behind this, I suspect, is that not everyone is Series certified to be making these types of investment recommendations. As a result, it’s not very comparable at all to a sell-side firm. In fact, an analyst I met with said that the department is always restructuring its objective (though he said it in a positive tone). It didn’t seem like the analysts met extensively with actual companies, but this may be something that’s introduced to the BI analyst’s workflow.
If you have access to a Terminal in a public library or university, feel free to type BI into the command line. You’ll see the research is hardly fleshed out. They read more like slightly longer tweets with maybe an accompanying graphic. But one main problem is that it’s very hard to determine if the research is supposed to flow together because you might get lost clicking into other functions of the terminal or because the publication date is tucked away at the corner. I’d personally be surprised if anyone based an investment off the research, which should speak to the quality.
As for the comp, a friend who’s a first-year associate makes mid 80 base; but Bloomberg bonuses aren’t high, so your base is almost your entire take-home pay. From what I’ve seen, an associate’s hours are 9-6 outside of earnings season. During earnings season, it’s not as crazy as the sell-side, but there’s a chance you’d have to stay later. In keeping up with the Bloomberg customer service model, some associates are staffed on the help desk to answer questions about the data the platform provides (the real value-add).
As for why there are some ex-BB analysts, Bloomberg recruited some analysts off the Street. The tagline for the department now is that the analysts have an “average of 15ish years experience” in the industry, which would lend some credibility to the department. New associates, however, don’t have to necessarily come from this background. This would explain the disparity in previous work history. As to how some associates/analysts later lateraled, I’ve heard generally that the job wasn’t actually equity research. The few who successfully left have spun their role to get another they’d rather be doing. (Ironically, this fact is true of the analytics department as well.) Overall, the impression I got is that BI is either a good springboard to jump into a real front office role or a place for older analysts to retire.
Adding onto the above comments -
I know some contacts from school in BI. Are you coming from undergrad or looking to shift career paths?
The reason BI (from my understanding) doesn't issue any price targets/ratings is that Bloomberg, along with my fin tech firms, do not recommend taking any positions; in fact at Bloomberg I believe it isn't allowed.
So while your job would be different than that of ER on the SS (you won't be trying to generating trades from your research nor I believe, allowed to give any explicit recommendations), you still have opportunities to learn about whatever sector/group you are covering.
I would say it is more a role that is half data collection/analysis and half writing articles on said sector based on that, once again not publishing equity research reports. The job is definitely respected at Bloomberg and you will learn about whatever your coverage is, so you'll need to determine and research if this fits.
While a lot of BI people come from the SS, I'd do a linkedin search if I were you to see where people from BI whom are no longer with the firm for more insight.
I can probably add more if you have questions/apply and receive an offer.