What AUM is ideal in your opinion?

n+1. more is always better. kinda jokes, no less than $1b with clear path to scale and success, $10b is the next point where I’d personally feel a lot more comfortable, but expected performance, culture, etc all still matter very much.

Aum is not the entire story and cant be a singular reason to choose one over the other, but this varies wildly by strat. As an eq mkt neutral special sits person, anything from $500mm to just a few bn is the sweet spot. Under can be sketchy, over a few bn you lose a lot of the investable universe.

For LT secular winner/mutual fund guys, aim for higher aum. That’s stability and (hopefully) a nice cut of the bonus pool.

Ultimately, consider how stable the LPs are, whether the strat the PM is running is repeatable, and think about scalability before only considering an aum number

For me, $500mm. It is a bit more de-risked at that point. I'd be OK joining smaller but there would have to be something special or unique in it for me to assume that extra risk --ie, clear upward path, strong aum momentum, a fund with lots of potential. That's me, though. Lots of people join smaller funds to break into the industry and then try to use that as opportunity to move upstream to a larger fund later.

>$10b coming from MF PE. Maybe after couple years at a larger fund, I’d be comfortable to move to a $1b place. There’s stability in scale which is hard to find in the industry.