There isn't much information out there on DK, even though it seems to be a very large and well performing HF. Do people never leave this place and hence no one can talk about it?
How good is their reputation? (both in L/S and event-driven)
What's the culture like?
How competitive is compensation?
| +46 | Jane street suing MLP | 32 | 20h | |
| +40 | Investment principles | 11 | 4d | |
| +25 | Realistic HF Career Earnings | 22 | 1h | |
| +20 | Need urgent advice: How difficult is it to go from LO to L/S or MM fund? | 11 | 17h | |
| +20 | How to move from prop to MM for quant? | 2 | 23h | |
| +18 | MM Hedge Fund vs Prop Trader | 15 | 3d | |
| +18 | Possible exits from BB role below | 1 | 5d | |
| +17 | $100m Hedge fund offer - what comp should I ask for? | 8 | 12h | |
| +14 | Do You Make Estimated Tax Payments? | 2 | 2d | |
| +12 | Rolling Futures Systematically | 1 | 18h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
Curious about this as well
I don’t think they’re any more secretive than anywhere else. PM me
It'd be pretty dope if you could share a bit so other people (me) can learn vs inviting people to bombard your inbox (I'm shy).
bump
Bump
I work at DK. Associate-level. I'm using a throwaway.
I'm not that knowledgeable about pay so I'll give some guesses about higher levels based on the data points I do know. Associate can expect around 200k base and 100% bonus, around 300-400k total comp. There is Principal, and also Managing Director. They tend not to hire externally for these higher levels, even some more experienced people come in at Associate and have to get promoted. Both Principal and MD get points, but it's not a huge amount. Principal I would estimate total comp at around 600k-800k with 100-200% bonus. What I can tell you for sure is that there's a huge variance around MD pay depending on the role you serve and how important you are. Some MDs are maybe 800k. Some MDs are well into 1M+. Some MDs who serve some kind of leadership role even more. Honestly, there's tons of variance around pay as it really depends what you bring to the table and what your experience is. It's not like some PE fund where everyone comes in at the same level. There are a ton of partners, so don't expect to make partner anytime soon.
Reputation, they are a consistent fund, but not a flashy one. In good years they perform ok, in bad years they perform ok. If you want some highly-leveraged risk-chasing HF that hits 20% returns this is not the place to be. Major player in distressed and that was historically the core strategy. Nowadays they are a multi-strat fund and most of the PnL coming from other areas such as L/S equities, corporates/HY, merger arb, convertibles, and actually structured credit and real estate were big profit centers over the past few years.
Culture is probably significantly stronger than most funds out there. The asshole ratio is very low here. Most people are nice and there isn't that selfish attitude you get at a multi-manager fund. People get like 25 vacation days which is very high, and while most people take them around Christmas, it's still good. If you don't want to work with assholes then this is probably your best bet as far as an HF goes. This is probably why there's fairly low turnover. Work/life balance varies, some teams like real estate do a ton of hours, other teams may be more like 8:30-6:30 typically.
You don't hear anything about DK is by design. The partners don't care to project an image the way Ken Griffin and Bill Ackman might.
Thanks for doing this. Do you guys have a vesting period/holdback on any part of your cash comp?
I know two former DK associates and their comp. Both were factually in the $700k-$1MM cash range, though we’re on the senior side of associate. These data points are from within the last 2-3 years.
Ballpark years at the firm and total years of exp? Seems super high for what I imagine as “associate”
Seems high.
Would you be comfortable disclosing the HH?
Can you share which recruiter you use?
MD at a 40bn aum hedge fund only makes 1mm all in? That is lower than average banking MD, am I missing something?
They have close to 150 investment professionals resulting in 266 million per IP. Combine that with mid to high single digits in average returns and you'll realize there's not a ton of money of laying around
Would depend on the fund performance. That is on the lower side, but it depends how they use that title. Just remember that “MD” won’t mean the same across industries (and even firms within the same industry). Here it could just mean a more senior manager. Anyway, at HFs the comp at that level is almost always heavily tilted toward performance. So I usually see 500-750k base and then highly variable bonus. But I would normally guess ~$1.5mm for an average year for a “junior/mid” MD.
am i correct in understanding that they have a PE Special Situations type fund as well? cant seem to find much on them online at all.
They have three main funds from what I understand. A multistrategy fund that does senior secured distressed debt, l/s equity, l/s credit and risk arbitrage. Then they have a dedicated distressed debt hedge fund that focuses more on fulcrum type securities in distressed and then they have special situations pe type fund that can invest in pretty much anything from distressed for control to more esoteric illiquid stuff
DK - large? yes. well-performing? that's subjective...
They/ve tended to return MSD%...up to you if you consider that impressive.
Outside of the HFs doing tech/privates, big hitters are hard to come by, esp on scale so I'm not trying to knock on MSD, but its just not what most would consider impressive.
Yep, their flagship fund has returned +6.5% annually for the past 10 years.
Wow at a fund returning 6.5% per annum paying as well as they do (referencing the comp figures from the other posters)
With 1-2% std dev though
Anyone knows if there's been departures recently at the associate / senior associate levels?
Honestly as one of the posters said above - if you had not been a tmt/consumer fund over the past 10 years, have there been any >$10b funds consistently doing double digit returns? Cant think of that many outside of the platforms.
silverpoint has a 10% CAGR over the past decade after this year
Is that supposed to be good?
Silver Point Capital Offshore, Ltd:
2002: 3.4%
2003: 48.2%
2004: 25.8%
2005: 11.3%
2006: 16.7%
2007: 4.8%
2008: -32.3%
2009: 50.8%
2010: 21.4%
2011: 2.4%
2012: 18.2%
2013: 16.4%
2014: 2.3%
2015: -0.9%
2016: 10.4%
2017: 7.4%
2018: 0.6%
2019: 3.7%
3 / 5 / 10 year annualized returns being a LP of the Offshore Fund:
5/31/2020: 1.3% / 3.1% / 6.4%
12/31/2019: 3.9% / 4.2% / 7.9%
12/31/2018: 6.1% / 3.9% / 12.2%
12/31/2017: 5.6% / 7.0% / 7.7%
12/31/2016: 3.8% / 9.0% / 7.2%*
12/31/2015: 5.7% / 7.4% / 6.8%*
*since Nov-07 instead of 10-yr
omg wow so good much alpha over TMT fund!!! No one gives a shit about 10-year returns by the way.
Are dk returns any different from other distressed funds?
Ducimus quia reprehenderit sed qui blanditiis sit. Quam eos aut velit nostrum vel voluptates rem animi. Et sed aut accusantium non architecto.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Amet eius cupiditate debitis aliquam. Vel eos deleniti qui consequatur optio consequatur.