Can someone provide any insight into Viking please?

Hi all, current 2nd year associate at CD&R/KKR/Silverlake type shop and am looking to go to hedge fund land. Can anyone shed any light into Viking from a comp and cultural perspective? I understand they are essentially a pseudo-pod shop but really want to understand if anyone here had any insight regarding promotion outlook, culture, and compensation. I have a passion for public markets so don’t hit me with the “you seem like a risk adverse beta so HF land isn’t for you” nonsense. How does Viking compare to the likes of coatue, tiger, or lone pine

19 Comments
 

Based on the most helpful WSO content, here's what you need to know about Viking:

Compensation:

  • General Compensation Insight: Compensation at Viking can be substantial but varies significantly. For example, in 2019, Viking as a whole returned 18%. Three investment professionals and two admin staff collected about 2.2M GBP. Two equity partners split 13.9M GBP, with one person (presumably Hani Sabbagh) receiving 9.2M GBP and the other PM getting 4.7M GBP. Converting to USD, the highest-paid PM cleared about $12-13M that year.
  • Exaggeration of Compensation: It's important to note that while there are outliers like Grant Wonders who might bring in $30 million a year, most PMs at Viking don't make anything close to those amounts.

Culture:

  • Meritocracy: Viking is described as being close to a meritocracy with minimal politics compared to Private Equity. Performance is key, and tenure at the firm can also be beneficial.
  • Operational Structure: Viking isn't a traditional single-manager (SM) fund, nor is it a pod shop. It has features of both, with PMs and analysts running their own books separated by sector but with looser risk limits than a multi-manager (MM) and no quarterly/short-term/market-neutral investment style.

Promotion Outlook:

  • Career Path: There are examples of rapid career progression at Viking. For instance, an ex-Viking PM had a stellar resume (Harvard -> BX analyst program -> Viking) and became a PM by age 27 or 28, making Forbes 30 under 30. This indicates that exceptional performance can lead to quick promotions.

Comparison to Other Funds:

  • Performance: Viking's performance is exceptional but is primarily explained by sector/factor exposure rather than stock selection. This is similar to other elite hedge funds like Tiger Global and Lone Pine.
  • Compensation Structure: Unlike Tiger Global and Lone Pine, where the entire fund needs to perform well for high compensation, Viking's structure allows for individual performance to be more directly rewarded.

For more detailed information, you might want to look at Viking's company filings in London, which provide historical compensation data and other insights.

Hope this helps!

Sources: Any info on Viking?, Viking Global, Tiger Global, Coatue, etc.., Viking Global Investors Interview Questions, Are Hedge Fund Employees Structurally F***ed, Sundheim Is The Man - D1 cap thoughts

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 
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You can look at their UK filings for an idea of comp as it represents the economics of a single ‘pod’ they have there. tl;dr looks like 3-5 analysts pretty consistently high 6figs each on avg then the PM has a % of PnL which has ranged from $1.5-2m in meh years to $30m I think was the best year

 

So much cope not to mention an understanding of how PE firms work (I worked at BX/APO/KKR).

1. CD&R has a global fund while KKR has regional funds, if you count all BX/KKR/APO PE AUM it is multiples of CD&R.

2. CD&R has massive associate classes and is a bloated org filled with partners. You can count the number of SLP partners on one hand and associate classes are a fraction of the size. This leads to better work experience and more selectivity and higher quality of average associate, and average team member.

3. CD&R are a fundamentally different strategy from you BX/KKR/H&F type. It’s less applicable to HF-style investing.
 

4. PE firm alumni network is really important for HFs, I’d say that is how I saw a lot of people land their jobs. HH’s push them to firms where same PE firm people have been hired before and people get referrals from others who are 1-2 years older from their AN or ASO classes.  While CD&R has good exits in recent years, it’s not comparable to BX/KKR/SLP.

That says the work you do is overall pretty similar, not really applicable to HF investing, and your life sucks at any of these places so it doesn’t really matter. The job just sucks.

 

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