Q&A: I'm a Cross Capital Structure Hedge Fund Analyst
Hey guys and gals. I've been away from WSO for a while, but will never forget how much this site has helped me through my career, and figured now was a good time to give back. As mentioned above, I am currently a Research Analyst at a >$5bn Hedge Fund working on Credit and Equities. I started my career on the sell-side in both Credit and Equities. Feel free to ask anything and everything and I'll do my best to respond ASAP.
Interested to hear why you switched between credit and equity early on. (I moved from credit buyside to equity sellside)
Actually, I'm interested in why you moved from credit bayside to equity sell side lol - care to share?
I enjoy primary research and disliked doing secondary all the time. I enjoy coming up with my own ideas rather than assessing the validity of others and then copying them.
Distressed didn't really exist at the time and I was getting increasingly bored. I personally thought it would be great to learn more about the equity side of the business and then figure out what I wanted to do long term. I realized more and more that you can't have one without the other and if you don't understand both, you don't understand either.
Did having experience in both credit and equities help with recruiting for a cross capital structure HF position? Is this background pretty typical of ppl on your desk? If you had to go back to sell-side would you rather be in Credit or Equities again? Thanks for this.
I would say my experience and background is pretty unique. I tend so see people that are either Banking to HF or Credit only or Equity only. With that being said, there isn't a correct path or a perfect path. If I went back to the sell side, I would go to the credit side as a desk analyst.
Thank you so much for doing this. Want to hear:
Look forward to learning from you.
Do you have a specific sector focus or how else do you propose to generate alpha / differentiate yourself competitively across asset classes vs. specialists in each?
How old are you and what is your all-in comp on a solid (not spectacular) year of performance.
Age: 28-32 years old All in comp for an "average year": ~$400k, but obviously that depends on a ton of variables.
What are the biggest insights you've been able to take from being a credit investor to the equity side? Any of the inverse?
(In my experience, the former is a common narrative / path; the latter not so much.)
Thanks for sharing!
Can you share an example or case study of a credit special situations deal you worked on or came across? Would be interesting to get a feel of how to analyze the deal from a credit perspective.
Bump
Just graduated undergrad and began working at a large credit fund in a trade support role a few months ago. Best advice to make strides towards getting onto the investment side? Taking CFA level 1 is my first step- any other guidance?
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