Point72 Summer Academy vs Top BB IBD Summer
I was fortunate to receive offers from Point72, and top BB(GS/MS/JPM IBD) for junior summer. What is the best option? I think I want to enter HF and don't have too much interest in PE. My worry is that I'm constraining myself too much with Point72 and IBD is a known quantity.
I looked at previous thread about this, but they are both old and not very helpful.
Agree but golly i wish I had a summer learning about investing from p72... that would have been great experience (all else equal)
Point72's Academy is highly regarded and you could probably move to any firm/IB after. If I were in your shoes I would go with the Academy. Also, if you have any modeling/stock pitching experience you should be able to get a return offer. They focus on recruiting a wide range of majors and a lot of the other interns wouldn't have opened excel before the internship.
Wow I’m actually surprised by the number of people recommending P72... I’ll make a case for taking IBD.
You will get a much broader and transferable skill set at a top BB IBD than you will at P72. You may think you know what you want now, but reasonably good chance your mind will change when you are in the real world. I can tell you from experience it’s quite rare that people dont change their minds at all since college.
Sure P72 is a common name people know, but not sure it’s as “highly coveted” as some are making it out to be. It’s a standard multi manager hedge fund with a very short term horizon, specific risk parameters (net neutral, beta hedge, etc), high churn rate, etc. Generally interchangeable with something like citadel, millennium, etc. I think a lot of people under-appreciate how specific this type of public market investing is. This nothing close to your standard Warren Buffet value investing strategy. The skill set (beyond basic finance knowledge) is not readily/obviously transferable to many (if any) other jobs. Plus, from experience it is actually very easy to get an interview at P72 when you are in banking... much much much easier than PE recruiting so I can almost guarantee you that door will stay open for you down the line.
In short, I would take top tier BB IBD for the a) more generalized finance skill set and b) interpersonal/soft skill experience. Think this makes more sense unless you are a savant Michael Burry type character who does not think you would do well in IBD. Or, at the very least make sure you understand what you are getting yourself into at P72 and know you are not training to become the next Warren Buffet. Just my thoughts, coming from someone who has done IBD and now at a hedge fund. Happy to expand on anything.