Any info on Viking?
From the very limited information I've been able to gather, Viking isn't a traditional SM, but it's also not a pod shop, but it has features of both. A bunch of PMs & analysts running their own books separated by sector yet with looser risk limits than a MM, and no quarterly/short term/market neutral investment style. Can anyone comment on how Viking operates differently from Tiger Global/Lone Pine? We've all heard the tale of a young TMT PM @ Viking who supposedly made like $30mm and is now starting his own shop (btw anyone have any info on this? sounds like a crazy story). $30mm is definitely not the norm for a PM at Viking, but how much do the other PMs pull in during an average or good year? I don't know if this is right, but the nature of Viking (not really SM but not really MM either) tells us 2 things:
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It's probably harder to KEEP your seat at Viking than other Tiger Cubs. Viking probably has high turnover (maybe not Coatue high but you get the point)
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Eat what you kill model + big AUM + not many PMs/analysts/IPs in general = you can probably make more at Viking than at any other Tiger cub, if you are a PM/partner and have an incredible year (emphasis on having a good year). Here, everything is in your control and you are calling the shots, but there's no short term quarterly investment style and it's not market neutral, and it is quite literally eat what you kill, unlike the Tiger Globals/Lone pines of the world (to my knowledge...) where the entire fund needs to perform well for you to get that same level of comp
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Not sure how that reconciles with stated avg investment profession tenure at the MM. I think at citadel it’s a little over 2 years, and at Millennium it’s like 18-20 months. Viking does not turnover more than multi-mgrs.
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anyone else?
The Ex-Viking baller had a creme de la creme resume: Harvard —> BX analyst program —> Viking. PM at Viking by age 27 or 28 or something ridiculous like that (he made Forbes 30 under 30 I think). Word on the street is that he’s starting his shop, perhaps he’ll be the next big thing who knows. Just by looking at linkedin, there are plenty of Viking analysts that don’t have the creme de la creme resume, some do some dont, but I wouldn’t say it’s a requirement. Once you’re at a place like BX, APO, KKR, you’re a legit contender for just about every tiger cub/elite non-tiger cub, and it doesn’t matter how you got to that top MF. Sure, going to wharton or harvard and then GS TMT would help in getting you to that MF, but again not a requirement. I can’t really think of any other Tiger Cub or top L/S shop where a 29 year old could make that kind of money. Maybe some rising star at Tiger Global last year or the dude at Pershing Square who put on the COVID CDS hedge could make 30 sticks, but those are true anomalies. At Viking, if YOU can single handedly crush it year after year, you will be rewarded handsomely for it. At other SMs, you could have contributed to ideas that made money, but if the fund did poorly you won’t be rewarded as nicely. And at Viking, it seems that if you can crush it, you’ll get rewarded nicely and will get promoted quickly. Sundheim, Jacobs, and now Jin were all named CIO in their 30s. They probably put up crazy numbers year after year from their mid 20s to mid 30s and were then made CIO. That’s not easy, but if you’re a monster you’ll move up the ranks. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the platform that Halvorsen has built, and it’s one that is ideal for young guys ready to crush it. People try to avoid the MM pods because of how stressful the risk limits are, and some people avoid SMs because they may not get the level of autonomy that they’re looking for; Viking is the best of both worlds IMO.
Not very knowledgeable on how compensation is structured at viking but I think it would be difficult to implement an eat what you kill model there. So, for example, let's assume you're a pm and you crush it in a given year with 30 percent return in your own book but the fund as a whole stays flat. So there's no performance fees to go around. How do you get paid in that scenario?viking isn't a MM. So they can't expense your compensation to LPs and get you paid based on the returns you put up. So, I'm guessing you don't really get paid a lot in that scenario and also why I believe you can't structure compensation under an eat what you kill model there.
But don't PMs at Viking run their own books? If the average PM there runs a $1.5bn book, and puts up 30%, that's $450mm PnL. Maybe the PMs there get like 5-7% of their PnL, which is reasonable and implies a range of $23mm to $32mm. It would make sense if Viking operated/paid it's PMs like this, and it is the only explanation for how a 29 year old PM can make $30mm there and have monster years before that too. Maybe a new PM there runs like $500mm, but that will definitely scale quickly as you perform. To me, Viking seems to be the closest to a meritocracy: there's no politics like in PE, and what really matters is if you can perform, and it helps if you've been there for a while :)
I get what you're saying but I don't think investors would want to pay any performance fee at all for the performance of a single pm if all the other pms were underperforming so that the fund as a whole would be flat or in negative territory. In that case, there's not really any performance fee to go around, ,even for the best pms and that's really what I was referring to before. Remember that the pms might have their own books but they're not running their own funds which means fees are paid on aggregate fund performance and not individual pm performance
The average PM at Viking does not put up anywhere near 30% per year, one note I did not add in my other post is I know they fluctuate around 150-250% GMV. If each PM put up 30% on their GMV returns would be near ~70-80% so no chance of this. They have averaged returns of about 15% net, so I would assume PMs are making 7-10% per year on gross.
To counteract the comp point, each PM is allocated closer to 5B as compared to 1.5B. There are 10-12 PMs at the fund, and they manage 25B levered to about 50B so ~5B is what I would expect for most PMs.
Agree with the other point, there is not a pass through on the fees (this is outlined in their investor pres you can find on google), so PM payout must be structured in some way to be based on overall fund performance as well as individual book perf.
Gotcha. So let's change the "scenario". Viking usually has positive years, I think we can all agree on that. If the fund does like 15%+, but as a PM you have a monster year, you'll get rewarded with an 8 figure payout. I could see that happening
I think you should take a look at vikings companies House filing in london. Hani sabbagh
is pm there who runs the financials team. The companies house filings have information on his compensation. I think you could find 10 years worth of compensation information there. He didn't make 8 figures in a single year. I think people in these forums massively exaggerate hedge fund compensation. Yes, you do have outliers like grant wonders who might bring in 30 million a year. But they're just that. Outliers. Most pms at viking don't make anything close to those amounts.
How do you access/find the filings report? Can you provide a link?
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/OC32…
page 15 of the "full accounts" for 2019 gives you the info. 2019 was a very good year with Viking as a whole returning 18%. 3 investment professionals and 2 admin staff collected about 2.2M GBP in 2019. 2 equity partners split 13.9 M GBP with 9.2M going to one person (presumably Hani) and 4.7M going to the other PM. convert to USD, and highest paid PM cleared about $12-13M that year.
can look through the historical "full accounts" and get an idea of what the top PM was collecting every year. highly compensated but a far cry from the $30M payouts everyone seems to think are common. also the analysts aren't making that much. let's take out a 100k for each admin staff, and that leaves us with 2M GBP, or about 2.7M USD split between 3 analysts.
Spot on my man. Suppose you could work at any L/S SM as an analyst, where you would become a PM after 5+ years or whatever. It has to be L/S (or maybe activist) SM, so no Renaissance or MM stuff -- which one would net you the most over the course of 15 years if you put up good numbers? I'm assuming it's not Viking. Maybe Tiger Global, Lone Pine, or Pershing? Like obviously different strokes for different folks in terms of strategies, but what would be the ultimate dream shop for a kid looking to break into L/S or activism (not considering culture/fit, just comp lmfao), even if you may have a 0% shot at landing a seat there? Every guy has a crush on a girl like Margot Robbie or Gigi Hadid; they'll never get to be with them, and sure they might not be the right fit in terms of personality and everything, but you get the point. What would be the hedge fund equivalent
Posted this Bloomberg article on another thread. Gives a glimpse into what a senior analyst at Baupost made in 2014.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-07/they-gave-her-a-3-8-…
A couple of quotes:
"Still in her 30s, Rohrbeck would earn a $3.75 million bonus for that year, 2014. She heard it was the most of anyone in a similar role at Baupost, one of the largest and most successful hedge funds."
"In January 2015, when Baupost paid out Rohrbeck's $3.75 million bonus, Klarman congratulated her on a "strong year," according to her filing."
"The year of Rohrbeck's big bonus, Klarman was paid $200 million, according to Forbes."
"Rohrbeck, who has a bachelor's degree from Harvard as well as the MBA, joined Baupost in 2006 as an analyst. She specialized in real estate investing. After five years, she was promoted to principal, one rung below managing director, which is then followed by partner."
Seems like someone who is capable of getting an offer at Viking is capable of continuing their career at a megafund (or decide to go UMM/MM). Would comp at Viking really outpace the carried interest that VPs/Principals would start earning in PE?
That is facts on steroids-- anyone know the answer? The Heidrick PE comp report says that a principal at a MF could have like $20mm in carry. Obviously the odds of that paying out are not 100%, but if your fund puts in the work and has solid exits, it could very easily happen (over the course of the next 5-10 years, not next year haha). Then once you hit the partner level, that $20mm in carry goes up even more. I'm sure you COULD make that kind of money at a HF, but it sounds like it's a lot harder to do so at an HF than in MF PE. I would imagine that the thoughts going through an Apollo associate looking to go to Viking or Tiger Global right now are something along the lines of "if I stay at Apollo, I would be a slave for another X years, but there could potentially be a $20mm present waiting in a spreadsheet for me in a few years. If I go to an HF, I would have to take on A LOT more risk to get $20mm, but if I'm successful I could potentially do it faster or just as fast, PLUS I would have a better lifestyle". It sounds like a very hard decision, and one that is (on the MF side) largely motivated by comp/future earnings. But does anyone have an actual answer to the question??
Resume means absolutely jack shit when you get past making $300-500k a year.
Didn’t each Tiger Global and Pershing Square mint multiple non-founder billionaires? How do your reconcile that with statement that they don’t have upside like Viking?
I don’t think either minted any non-founder billionaires.
His name shall be Grant Wonders.
come on man no need to dox everyone knows who he is
You mean Grant Wonders? The wonder kid?
Can anyone explain to me what is SM and MM?
SM = single manager
MM = multi-manager / platform
Single vs multi-manager
Pershing, Lone Pine, and Tiger Global are the best funds for comp + career stability.
Can u explain how? In MF PE, you could potentially net like $100-200mm+ depending on how different funds perform and how much carry you get, and it’s a lot more stable than HFs. Maybe a very successful partner at one of the funds u mentioned could make $100mm over their time working there.
I think basing your career on working at 3 firms is short sighted. Basically if you don't get along with the founders of those funds you are out of luck
Most of it comes down to if you get along with the founder of the fund.
Even if you are a genius investor but you dont get along with the founder you will get driven out basically
I know Viking well. Some of the smartest analysts and PMs out there - same is true for Lone Pine. They don’t suffer fools - so you need to know your companies well. Great ratio of AUM to headcount means you al get paid a tonne if the performance is good. Andreas the original founder is a legend.
Yeah they always seem to put up really nice numbers. How much is a ton - any specific numbers other than this wonders guy? Also dude you're in highschool lmfao....Btw can't go wrong with Chicago vs Duke, but I'd pick Duke bc Chicago is depressing af. How do you know anything about Viking?
Cringe at "I know Viking well." from a high schooler.
If you're going to pretend you know what you're talking about, don't post questions on the same account asking which college you should go to.
EDIT: Also, the more I look through this guy's account, he's just a compulsive liar. Also claimed on another post that he "attended LSE years ago" despite currently being a HS senior.
Fair play - I posted for my son regarding Duke versus Chicago. The responses to posts on Viking & LSE were from me. Apologies for the confusion - wasn’t trying to be disingenuous.
Does anyone know the level of diligence going into investment decisions at Viking versus Tiger versus Lone Pine etc? Read somewhere that Tiger has a very diversified portfolio and they sometimes invest in private tech cos with just a few days of diligence
Tiger is currently disrupting the late stage VC market by leveraging their speed + ability to write large checks. It will be interesting to see how it pans out for them
assuming you read this but posting here for others
https://randle.substack.com/p/playing-different-games
not well lol
can anyone share what the interview process looks like? what is the difference in interviews between place like say Pershing vs. Viking?
Typical process, but more drawn out - say several months
Good place
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