SS ER Firm that Mirrors Buyside Experience
My goal is to eventually end up at a LO or L/S shop. However, I am realizing that I may have to transition to SS ER first to get the opportunities I want in the near future.
My biggest issue with SS ER is the politicization of the work and that often times the actual research does not matter because the buyside just wants your corporate access and your managers just want to keep the covered names happy so they can become clients of additional services at the bank.
What SS ER shops have the reputation of mirroring the Buyside in that the research is the main concern?
I am assuming independent shops would be the way to go. What are some of the more reputable ones?
Off the top of my head:
MoffettNathanson, New Street, Wolfe, Bernstein, Melius, Gordon Haskett
Which of these would place well into the buyside?
From a quick LinkedIn search, it seems like Wolfe and Bernstein do alright. However, it was hard to tell if moving to the buyside after a few years was a common trajectory.
I am not too sure, I presume all these ones should place well to buyside if YOU are good.
It’s really not close to as bad as you described as far as corporate access/IB relationships impacting coverage decisions.
Actual buy side relevant experience means you most likely want to not cover a sector that is not highly specialized....think industrials, tech, services not gaming, semiconductors, certain parts of healthcare etc.
Apologies. You’re wording here is a little confusing. Are you saying that I would want to cover specialized industries like the ones you mentioned or not?
Avoiding highly specialized sectors will make your experience more relevant for LO shops and hedge funds.
Look up the analyst that you're interested in working for and check their distribution of buys, holds, and sells.
This is a good idea. However, how would I go about finding an analyst that I like?
Wouldn't the analysts more or less be based on what specific openings exist?
Yeah, basically, you have to work it the other way around. Find an opening and see if that analyst has a good distribution.
Other idea might be a good starting point for a cold call e-mail. Say that you are particularly interested in working for an analyst with a decent distribution of ratings. Don't throw the whole ER business under the bus, but communicate that looking at the downside is attractive to you as you want to learn as much as possible.
Good point, but some firms have mandated buy/hold/sell distributions now (ie. 15-20% of coverage has to be sell rated), could be misleading as the only data point. Just something to note.
That's true and I have mixed feelings about forced distributions. However, even in these cases, the analyst will have more freedom to be objective than a shop with 17 Buys and 3 Holds.
Cough, Oppenheimer, end cough
This is a good point. What shops are similar to this that you would recommend I avoid altogether?
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