Hi all,
I work for a reasonably successful single manager fund (in an emerging market) that's well known to the highest quality US allocators (university endowments, family offices and such), and have been here for about 3.5-4 years. We are a 4 people investment team including the CIO, hence the P&L is a common one.
Like other ambitious monkeys, I often think about starting up. I spoke to a couple of well known seeders in the region, and they said that if you want to start-up on your own, you need a track record and/or $5-7Mn. I am not even remotely close to having that much money, nor do I see a path to making that much. In fact, if I had that much money I would be retired (as that's a lot of money in my emerging market)
How would you go about building a track record at a single manager fund? A few of the stocks I pitched have been included in the portfolio and they have done alright, but I doubt it's a track record, because any success is as much the manager's as it's mine (in terms of position sizing and risk management etc)?
Am I doomed to be an analyst monkey till I retire? What are the typical next steps for analysts at single managers?
Any suggestions would be helpful. Going through bit of a mid career crisis here :(.
Most people who work at smaller SMs will usually leave after hitting that crossroad. They will go to MM, where there is a clearer path towards becoming a PM. Or, they will go to a larger SM that has things like sector heads. That said, there is nothing wrong with just staying the course and being a (super) senior analyst as your fund continues to do well and grow (but it just doesn't leave a backup plan in case the fund fails in the future, which can be quite unnerving and probably is what you are trying to solve for now).
This is a fair common issue. You have a few options:
MM - join a MM as a sub-PM, you get a book and run a strategy within a larger strategy. If you prove yourself you can move into the PM slot at some point. Would be easier if you can pull out your trades of the overall book, even a rough number would go a long way. The smaller MMs are more open to this vs the big ones.
FO - some large family offices take senior analysts, let them run a book on their platform to gain a track with the potential to spin out in the future. Even if you don't spin out, you get the PM experience and can take your track to a MM or seeder. The key thing to watch out for is the FO systems, do they have the infrastructure to 'track your track' as some of these are a mess.
SM - there are still a few large SM out there where you can run a sleeve within a sector.
Launch - find a wealthy guy, pitch yourself and start something small. Easier said then done of course.
Stay - there are plenty of small SM out there with a core team that has worked together for ages and are all happy/well paid.
Best of luck!
Which large single manager funds let u run a book other than viking?
Any chance you could name some of the SMs where you can run a sleeve? Curious, thanks
.
Is a pivot to one of the big LOs a potential path? Would imagine you wouldn't run money immediately, but my understanding is Analysts generally do after 2-3 years
This is super helpful - will work for a couple of years more and ask for a sleeve to create my own track record. If not, I guess stay at the place as the PM is a good guy and the team works well together.
Wouldn’t OP run the risk of getting pigeonholed into taking risk within a market neutral strategy/risk model if they were to jump to MM? Or is it more important to build a track record first, regardless of investing strategy, and leverage that to go out on your own
It's hard enough building a track record in your own strategy you're comfortable with, let alone if adopting a new strategy where you are more likely to be given capital to manage.
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