Are hours?
1. Long like banking (100+)?
2. Track the market (so like 8 to 6 maybe?)
3. Depends more on your team
,so what about other things like how predictable are your hours and do you get called in on the weekend? how much "reading from home" is actually expected? And does any of the above include time for traveling?
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I did IB, and PE across two funds for 6 yrs prior to the jump to the public world, so definitely have some perspective on this. I think in general, across the board, with the exception of a few notorious preftigious HFs, hours are more reasonable relative to PE/IB.
The biggest reason behind this is public investing is inherently not a transaction based model- you're not working towards a first-round bid or second-round bid, you're not on some sort of exclusivity driven deadline to close a deal, and you're not taking on the additional responsibility of serving as the corp dev arm of your portfolio companies (which is fun but can be a pain when you're helping prepare stupid board decks no one reads).
The other reason, although not as big a consideration at some funds, is conducting quarterly valuations and having to mark those to market. In PE- it's all subjective, vs at a public shop, you're marked to market everyday by the markets so you're not triangulating on value.
I do want to be clear- earnings weeks are hectic, as updating models and synthesizing new information takes time. But even those weeks I consider generally manageable relative to what I went through. You're definitely thinking critically about companies in your portfolio but you can do that anywhere- at home, work, etc. I've found people in general on the public side to not care as much about face time, because it doesn't do much. It's also because often times you're not working on a "deal team" - you're on your own. So it matters to exactly 0 people where you sit and do your processing.
Few caveats: I can't speak for the distressed guys. I imagine their hours and lifestyle to resemble PE more than HF, as often times the securities bought/sold are illiquid, deals are relationship driven, and there may be a need to come to a decision relatively quickly. I also will say that funds that trade more and are market neutral (we're long biased) will probably have longer hours as shorts generally catalyze over a quarter or two, and its imperative to get the timing right. That can all create additional work.
Hopefully the above makes sense. I'd reiterate- the biggest driver of the difference in hours is working in a transaction based model vs not
Based on your comments, it appears you're probably still in college or in an unrelated industry, but no problem, I'll try and take a stab:
1) "Prestigious" refers to the Millenium, Appaloosa, Maverick, Tiger Global, Pershing Square, Coatue types..funds you hear about every day in the news and are well regarded/respected (although I can't be so sure about Pershing anymore!). Let's be clear - most people don't like working more - they're forced to, unless they're workaholics which there is an abundance of on Wall Street. Managers play a big role in driving culture at the end of the day. For e.g. I've heard Coatue is a miserable place to work at, is incredibly cutthroat, and the hours suck. On the other hand, David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital has a great culture with reasonable hours but he's the driver of that culture, the AUM doesn't drive that. To that point, there are enough no-name shops that have terrible cultures and hours because their PMs are straight up A-holes. So, to conclude, I hate using this line but it depends. In general, at larger, well reputed shops, of course the performance pressure (and associated reward) is higher. This isn't unique to hedge funds, this applies in literally every industry. Staying on top is just as hard as getting to the top.
2) I don't think you understand what buying a private vs public company means, else you wouldn't be asking this question. Basically when you are trying to purchase a private co, there's a ton of due diligence outside of investment related diligence, including accounting, legal, environmental, blah blah blah that goes into it, so as a junior professional you're typically managing several workstreams to get a deal done. On the public side, it's not two "separate" analyses to enter and exit a position. Simplistically, you establish an "intrinsic value" for the company - i.e. what you think it's worth based on your assessment of the company's growth prospects, knowledge of the industry and competitors etc, and you leverage a bunch of valuation methodologies to triangulate on value. The goal is to buy a security at a discount to this intrinsic value. As the security begins to move closer to your estimate of intrinsic value, you start to think more about selling down, and if there are any events that cause it to trade way above your estimate of intrinsic value for reasons you can't logically explain, it's better to be extremely disciplined and just sell. It's not as simple as that but my point is these aren't two decisions you're making. TLDR- buy at a discount to intrinsic value, sell if price >> intrinsic value. Each quarter once #s come out, you're updating your intrinsic value estimate.
3) Updating valuation models almost always takes longer than people think. Firstly, it depends on how much information the co. provides to public market investors. You can bet that for traditional value focused shops, we're tracking every metric they'll give you. Secondly, it's not just updating the #s, there's a bunch of filings released starting with the 10-Q, 8Ks and Investor Presentations that each contain different information you may be piecing together for your models. Apart from the fillings, you're paying close attention to what the company is saying on its earnings call, what the sell-side is thinking, what competitors are saying on their earnings calls, and any industry research you can get your hands on to ultimately decide whether a position is less or more attractive based on this new info and whether it should continue to be purchased, maintained, trimmed, or sold. I'm dramatically simplifying the decision making process here but that's essentially what you get compensated for so you have to give this stuff a lot of thought, and it's time consuming.
Hope this helps.