Endowment Fund -----> IBD
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Given you still have your junior summer to land an IB gig, I'd say an endowment fund is pretty top notch for a sophomore summer. Most sophomores spend time at the neighborhood pool for summer, so you're on the right track.
On another note, does the fund perform direct investments, or does it act like a placement agent where you just do research on the funds the endowment has allocated capital to?
Not sure on the exact split, but they indicated to me during the interview process that they do both direct investments and investments in seperate funds.
Get as close as possible to the direct investment teams
Could you expand on this a little?
Well think about the differences in skill sets and which one may apply to IB.
Modeling skills come from direct investment. That business valuation and operations perspective comes from analyzing a firm or asset, directly.
Placement and secondary teams typically do research to get an idea of where to allocate capital, based on the universe of funds, their performance, their management, their asset focus/expertise, etc. The funds are doing the technical work and the placement teams may just have a model come across their desk - though it'll be a completed model.
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