Comp/Career at Elliott?
Always been interested in learning about comp structure/progression at hedge funds and have read numerous threads on comp for people at the huge pod shops and SM's. I am hoping to learn more about comp/payout structure/career trajectory at Elliott, particularly in their distressed debt and activist divisions. To my understanding, the career trajectory is similar to that of PE, as I believe you go analyst --> associate --> principal --> PM --> senior PM --> and then equity partners at the top.
I am curious because I see tons of extremely smart people at Elliott with top tier experience in PE and other HFs so I assume that Elliott is able to draw this top talent by offering an intellectually stimulating experience and an approach different from all other HFs, as well as giving them the potential to earn the same (or more) then people that climb the rankings at pod shops.
I am not sure how it is now, but it seems as if Elliott used to be purely merit-driven, as we all saw Jesse Cohn make millions in his early thirties and become a PM at such a young age.
I would imagine that most people at Elliott are earning more than those at the huge pod shops, because most of their investment team members I have seen on LinkedIn certainly have the experience and credentials to be working at any of the large pod shops.
Anyways, these are just some of my thoughts. I guess I am interested in learning the following.
1. what is the earnings potential for analysts that join Elliott in their distressed debt or activist teams as their career progresses and they climb the rankings?
2. Is Elliott's comp structured similar to a pod shop, in that the distressed team and activist team each receive a certain percentage of their PnL?
3. Is it still purely merit driven? If your the best and perform well, can you still reach PM at a young age or has it become a much more set-in-stone process?
This is a very complicated question that few people will have good answers to given how closed off Elliott is. This is all second hand information but from what I can tell:
1. Yes Elliott guys are sharp
2. They don’t get comped as much as pods in their winning years but they can take longer duration bets and they have a longer leash. I doubt it’s a fixed % but as with any HF, there’s huge beta to PnL. The model is also different since Elliott tends to take huge single concentrated positions.
3. There’s a lot of politics to become a “PM”. These days it’s incredibly difficult at a place like Elliott to “rise up”. You talk about climbing the rankings as if it’s like a bank or something. It’s a lean team where ranks don’t really change around that much unless there’s an opening or the PM leaves which is rare. Most people end up as “senior analysts” and collect their $1m comp in a decent year.
4. Jesse was a super unique case where he built a vertical within Elliott at a time where Elliott was growing their activism business even more.
really appreciate this. I am shocked to learn that senior analysts will make $1mm in a good year. I would've thought it'd be much more
They seem to be hiring ppl almost every year. Where does the huge glut who dont make PM go. Is Elliott open to help ppl recruit for their next jobs like PE funds?
$1mm for a senior analyst seems low if EB directors/Big 4 partners are above that, no ?
Yes. They make multiple millions in a good year. $1m my guess is an OK year. Also pls remember that things plateau very fast. You don’t make more just because you’ve been at Elliott a long time. Ppl with 5-7 YOE pulling 7figs there in OK years. But scaling that over time is pretty difficult unless you become their equivalent of a PM which is tough. People leave to upgrade themselves and get paid more.
Also big 4 partners are earning that when they’re 50. The Elliott analyst is doing it in his late 20s.
There are no senior analyst positions there. It’s associate PM after analyst.
lol yes APM is the term they use but it’s a senior analyst role. Who cares about semantics dude
I'm now more than ever convinced intimate HF knowledge is super niche and concentrated amongst a small subset of the finance community that isn't particularly active on this site / others based on the nature of responses.
I wouldn't treat anything you read on here too seriously particularly concerning comp / trajectories. The variance is crazy and frankly very few people know, almost all of whom are not on WSO lol.
General firm comments are for the most part accurate but these kinds of questions are very difficult to answer as the other poster alluded to.
Very close friend of mine works at the place and he told me the following:
- Formulaic pay out for PMs
- Made north of 1 mm his second year there when his team had a really good year
- Did classic 2+2 before
I find it hard to believe that senior analysts are not clipping multiple millions in good years.
He told me his PM definitely made 10s of millions given his performance.
Yeah exactly the guy above is doing some MM coping, I have heard similar comp for 2+2 people from a friend of a friend in London
I posted above. Not doing MM coping. Honestly don’t even work at an MM. I don’t think people realize that even PMs at Elliott don’t have really good years every year? Data point above is very believable - someone getting paid $1m+ after 2+2 in a “really good year”. I’ve seen this before at many SMs. But no 2+2 at Elliott is getting that in a mediocre year.
As one of the posters mentioned on this thread: there’s just incredible variance within this industry and I think the biggest takeaway should be that the floor is relatively high at Elliott and if you do well, so is the ceiling. There’s enough $ to go around to pay you because position size and AUM is relatively large even for SMs.
Do you know anything about the WLB? Is it similar to banking and PE in that you are working 100 hour weeks? Or is it more market hours oriented and similar WLB to the pods?
Thanks for the insight. Do you have any word on becoming a PM? Is it a process like the person described above, in that most people get stuck at senior analyst because the spots rarely open up? Or is it merit-driven and if you’re good enough they’ll promote you?
How do they spend their time / what does their strategy look like day to day?
For the UK you can get a good sense of comp on CompaniesHouse - yes the # of employees includes back office/non-IPs but I would wager at a similar scale that the ratio of front:back office is similar, if anything it's higher for the pods with more folks in data/bizdev etc.
For 2022, Elliot £1.3m (£161m / 124 employees), Citadel £1.6m (£242m / 149 employees), MLP £1.3m (£446m / 347 employees), P72 £0.8m (£160m / 196 employees).
I'm surprised that Elliott has so many employees too, probably a lot of them are older / don't have LinkedIn?
Also be mindful MLP and Citadel have LLP structures through which some of the bigger PMs are paid so the number above excludes that - Elliott and P72 use Limited Company entities only. With that in mind the profit per partner at TCI LLP was $17m - good reason they are considered a league of their own in the UK HF world, Elliott is much more comparable to the pod shops in comp
Of the 17, we don't know that chris himself isn't taking 16 of that
You're right - but the figures you have quoted are in US$ and not £.
Cit only one who reports in USD which I converted, rest are in GBP
I think I am more surprised that Millennium/Citadel has so few employees in London. The number of London based employees for MLP/Citadel is over 700 as of today if you look at LinkedIn. An article by Efinancialcareers distinguishes Millennium Capital Management Ltd. (the UK holding company, which includes all administrative and investment staff) (Those 765 people were paid a total of $824.5m in wages and salaries, or an average of £1.1m ($1.3m) per head, up from $1m per head in 2021. ) and Millennium Capital Partners LLP (the partnership comprised predominantly of the investment staff) (Accounts for Millennium Capital Partners LLP for 2022 also split out how much Millennium paid 347 investment professionals specifically. Namely, they each received £1.3m in wages and salaries alone, up from the £1.2m average it paid 257 investment professionals in 2021. ) I think Citadel has similar structure, though too many entities with name “Citadel” on companieshouse website and I haven’t found the correct one yet.
Curious, does anybody know much about Elliot’s structured credit strategy? It looks like they invest in some CMBS?
I have multiple friends there and more than half are really fucking depressed
can you elaborate?
.
Keen to hear more - whyt? and how do they spend their time / what does their strategy look like day to day?
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