I honestly can't name off the top of my head CFA® charterholders who are heading top funds. I don't "count" Cooperman/Gross since they both have MBAs too. Heck, it almost seems that JDs are a more common professional designation in the top HF & PE space (Singer, Rubenstein, Bonderman).
Am I overlooking people?
what is the point of this exercise?
Satisfying my curiosity.
In general, a CFA just isn't valued in the HF community the way it is in the long-only AM world. Also, among the HF manager set, a good number began as traders, so it's not really surprising that something like a CFA wasn't in the cards. Fundamentally, there is just very little in the CFA program that is going to contribute to you becoming a good investor.
A JD is actually potentially useful, although unlikely to provide a great return on investment of time and money. Definitely helps in credit investing, especially distressed, to have a legal background. It'll help you with identifying potentially interesting opportunities and doing preliminary research. That said, even if you have a legal background, you'll always end up having a law firm review docs before investing in a distressed situation, so the benefit is muted.
+1 SB once the site's back up properly and can award them again. The value of the CFA amongst the HF community is really what I'm trying to gauge.
I'd say you've provided a mixed bag of advice/information.
Isn't valued in the HF community as it is in the LO AM world? Bold statement. There is very little difference in terms of fundamental analysis that you do at a LO and e.g. a L/S equity fund. Certain parts of the CFA are directly relevant AND useful for your role. Will it make you a great investor? Absolutely not. Will it make you more knowledgeable and more informed about things that actually matter to you when making investment decisions? Absolutely yes.
JD potentially useful when compared with CFA? Hell no. Only for specific roles - maybe distressed debt, maybe more broad event-driven investing, but that's pretty much it really. Rule of thumb, if you had to choose between the two and didn't know what fund strategy you'd like to immerse yourself in - go for the CFA.
Trader - PM transition - agree completely. It was a different age when the most common transition was from prop trading at a bank to an analyst/PM role at a fund. Nowadays it's much more M&A/ER to an analyst/PM position (at least for more traditional equity funds).
Solid contender for the most pointless thread of 2015.
Also, evidencing a severe misunderstanding of the history / evolution of finance careers and both qualifications.
I'll bring it back up around year end to get it nominated.
I'm on this website to be educated on the "history/evolution of finance careers." Hope to see you meaningfully contribute to that education sometime soon.
Two that come to mind are Marty Whitman and Howard Marks.
Ironically the only CFA charterholder in my group is our trader. He's also one of only two MBAs. Overall I think my firm (mega-cap multi-strategy HF) has 5% CFAs, 15% MBAs, and more lawyers than either (and possibly both combined) among its investment-side people.As always, valuable input Kenny, thank you!
This make sense since in special situations and distressed debt investing, having strong legal knowledge (bankruptcy provisions, debt covenants, taxes, etc.) can be more useful than a CFA or MBA. Ultimately it depends on the firm and the type of strategy you're working on. A big long-only mutual fund such as BlackRock will value a CFA since it is more relevant to what they actually do. Also, a fund's preference lot of times will boil down to the background of the founders. If the founder has an MBA, he will probably be biased towards those who also have an MBA, especially from his school.
So short answer: it really depends.
CFA has become more prevalent in the last decade or so . . . so yeah I don't think 70+ year old Leon Cooperman would have it.
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