Soros on PM level
Hey: Anyone familiar with the set up of Soros on the long short equity side from a PM’s perspective? Comp, culture, asset allocation, discretion, turnover among staff etc. thanks
Hey: Anyone familiar with the set up of Soros on the long short equity side from a PM’s perspective? Comp, culture, asset allocation, discretion, turnover among staff etc. thanks
Career Resources
Equities a much smaller part of the firm, credit and other divisions much bigger. Just a handful of teams with very low headcount, but AUM/head is thus pretty good. Each PM has very different mandates from what I can tell which can be narrow (single sector equity focus) or broad (L/S all asset classes). Turnover was high when Dawn took over as she cleared house but has settled down, she has some anecdotes about giving PMs longer leashes than they would get at a typical pod shop, i.e. you'll get fired after a down year but not necessarily after a down 1H. Culture is also chill, a lot of people live far away from the office and work fully remote.
Thanks. Comp similar to pod shops on PM level? Do they run the books market neutral? How does the asset allocation work?
I would answer all of this in painful detail but I have to be careful around the details as headcount is not that high and disclosure is obviously not very public unlike Millenium/citadel comp structure etc.
Broad strokes:
- market neutral - no, none of the books are market neutral. Long biased directionality depending on the PM & strategy. Can even be 100%+ net long in some circumstances/environments
-- I stand corrected on this. The older legacy books are not market neutral, but the new deals being signed today on the equities side are Market Neutral.
- comp - less % than citadel/Millenium, but because you're not market neutral you can have 10,20,30% P&L years
- leash - does not work like a pod shop: you don't lose your job even after a down year, even a double digit % down year, unless you are shown to be a poor investor/philosophy doesn't align with the fund/Dawn anymore. You can get fired even if you're up if the philosophy/risks you take aren't aligned. If you're up 10% obviously harder to justify firing but I've seen people get axed during up years (underperforming relative to expectations/ "sharpe").
There's also a fair bit of private investing you can do as well. Most L/S equity PMs can do privates, and some do a lot of private equity deals.
Risk limits work very different here and are customized based on portfolio and generally much more flexible unsurprisingly. For example, my book can take a double digit drawdown and not be axed.
- AUM/head - smaller than you think but you can lever up your equity allocation yourself, you're not given pre-levered money like at full pod shops.
Can also scale positions up $100mm+ with more attributed capital if Dawn likes them.
- culture - pretty relaxed. PM dependent to a degree but there are no hardo PMs (anymore)
No reason to get into much more detail because if you're looking for a European L/S Equity seat there's no spots currently and for the foreseeable future (obviously can change quickly but I don't see it trending that way). As was mentioned overall voluntary & involuntary turnover is pretty low and thus not a ton of new PM needs. Longevity here far outweighs the pod shops.
is the ability to work remotely true?
Hybrid. 3 days a week in the office is the policy.
For funds that are mandatory 3 days in office, do they let you choose them or are they predetermined?
Typically predetermined, otherwise what would be the point? They want people in the office together at least some of the time if they're hybrid
Et voluptatibus et quos aut. Vero iusto repellat doloribus. Quam facere ab neque minus.
Ipsa fugit rerum totam. Autem est et aut voluptatem accusantium.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...