If you want to join a distressed HF, don't worry about timing it. The skillset is a lot different than IB (at least in my case, I also joined from EB RX) and typically first few years junior comp is in a relatively tight band unless the fund blows up or does crazy well. In my personal experience the pay is much better and while the day-to-day is more stressful, the hours are much more predictable and reasonable. Obviously depends on the fund tho. Good luck

 

I would not worry about timing. You may want to consider whether the fund is pure play distressed focused or has a broader, multi-strategy approach that leans into distressed when opportunities arise. I mention this because distressed is cyclical and funds get into trouble when they have a narrow mandate and few opportunities to chase; dollars are allocated towards less compelling opportunities because they need to be deployed. I personally find it much more interesting to trade multi-strat because different things make sense at different times in the cycle, distressed being only a cool thing to do at certain points in time, and view it as a better learning environment for young analysts who benefit from exposure to various types of strategies. 

 

No OP but I resonate a lot with your take. Can you provide some examples of funds where you're able to do that?

The reason I ask is that at least during recruiting there's a bias towards sticking to one strategy (when discussing with headhunters for instance), so I'm curious on how positioning works for seats in such funds.

Thanks!

 

Apollo, Goldentree, Diameter, King Street, and then depending on what “team” you are on at the fund which may interact w the cyclicality issue mentioned above DK, Oak Hill, Oaktree, Elliott, and others all have strategy specific groups. They are “all weather” but not by sector - by asset class - whereas the first four mentioned the research teams flex from performing to distressed.

 

My understanding was that Apollo, Diameter, KS all have separate silos that work on CLO and par credit stuff vs. special situations. Diameter was specifically going on a recruiting drive for people to work on their CLO platform recently if I recall. Apollo also has "event-driven" teams that are separate from sector coverage teams that tend to focus more on performing credit (but helps out on distressed as a secondary resource on names they know well). King Street seems to be similar where there are distinct "HF Analysts" and "CLO Analysts"?

 

I have been pinged for Diameter, King Street, and Oak Hill's distressed team all in the last two months or so. 

Redwood and Glendon seem to come up here and there as well.  

EDIT: Adding some other distressed players that I have been pinged for recently as well, poster below is right on different approaches for each. 

- Silverpoint, 

- Onex opportunistic (startup), 

- Senator Credit, 

- Sixth Street Fundamental Strategies,

- Ares Special Opportunities, 

- Carronade (startup), 

- FitzWalter,

- H2. 

 

Thanks I would tend to agree. Say I’m currently in a liquid credit or direct lending seat: how would you suggest going about deciding between different strategies like distressed, l/s, etc ? I want to convey to headhunters and interviewers that I’m seeking a more flexible “all-weather” strategy (ideally king street, Davidson kempner) but don’t want to come across as not knowing exactly what I want. Just working on framing my story correctly 

 

Thanks, I’m OP. Any insight into culture for any of these?

 

What type of firm are you currently at?

Looking to understand what kind of seats generate these inbounds

 

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