New York Life- Investment Management

Investment analyst positions at large insurance/pension/etc are pretty "Wall Street"; while often bureaucratic and not as upside (in terms of comp and "prestige") as PE/HF, still do big deals and modelling etc.

It is buy-side, and probably pretty good lifestyle (relative to aforementioned places).

One of my bosses started his career at a big insurance company's fixed-income management group, he says he had a pretty great lifestyle while he was there and has worked for asset managers and HFs his whole career. The investment management groups at insurance companies manage the company's investment assets, not client assets or policy portfolios.

Insurance companies have investment arms that are quite large in terms of how much money they manage. You need to do something with all the premium that comes in, you can't just let the $ sit there. Most firms do the typical "investments" including equities, fixed income, and perhaps a bit of derivatives for hedging purposes. Some of the larger firms get involved in RE and PE as well.

So yes..."Wall Street."

Forgot to mention, some insurance-affiliated asset managers also manage outside money and may operate under different "brand names"-for example, Babson Capital is partially owned by MassLife, which is also a big source of AUM for them.

I started at a similar position and should have stayed there

It's a buy side "Wall Street" job, but with a lot more stability.

See any of Warren Buffett's annual shareholder letters for further reading. He always talks about and explains how they invest the "float" at his insurance companies in a very easy-to-read manner.

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

jqb, thanks for the link.

the investment management arm of new york life will be separate from what you call "glorified insurance sales", just like how the Asset Management arm of JPMorgan will be separate from their ibanking or sales groups - they are entirely different businesses

from what it sounds like, he will be working in asset management, a "buy-side" role

any buy-side job is highly coveted, especially out of undergrad, because there are simply very few spots available. buy-side jobs can be investment management positions at a BB, at a HF, at some diversified PE funds.

obviously there are better buy-side jobs. "traditional" asset managers like T. Rowe Price, Wellington, BlackRock, Fidelity etc are arguably the most coveted for the fewer hours, above-street pay, direct progression to the buy-side

many would consider your friends job to be "wall street" (ridiculous question) - and even better than most mundane finance jobs on the "street". he'll be doing more interesting stuff than most

Lifesgreatmystery it is a mystery that you think those roles are above street but ok.

These jobs are super passive. Large portfolios where you own everything and most of your job is monitoring unless looking at new issues. Interested if any of these shops run more concentrated small cap money

^ I'm beginning to see banking at more and more pointless as the day goes on. What are my chances of being picked up straight out of bschool for buyside research?

The job actually sucks. A friend of mine worked at a competitor and I consequently spent a summer at an insurance company's (hint: largest in UK). It was a horrible experience with few talented people with low aspirations (professionally). I can say, however, that the people were very nice and easy to work with.

you must have worked for a shitty company doing boring insurance work

to the OP, I think your friend must be working at MainStay Investments – the subsidiary of new york life.

agree with what other people said: most excess cash generated by insurance firms are "outsourced" to asset managers, or help found an investment fund fund... including the big players. i.e., PIMCO is owned by allianz

or how Oppenheimer funds owned by massmutual

none of these funds even recruit at the ugrad or grad level, they usually hire experienced professionals. i.e., MainStay doens't even have a careers section

so i don't know how your friend got the job. but kudos to him

yo. so many large life insurance companies have internal investment management groups that serve as fund of funds. the company i worked for, Prudential plc, ran 60b through my IM group that was then allocated to fund managers such as PIMCO.

i didnt do any "shitty insurance work" but instead worked directly with the investments. just like a fund of funds. it was boring.

well thats cuz you were doing FoF. FoF is always boring

and FoF don't work "directly" with investments. they just decide who to give it to, and the chosen manager is ultimately the one who makes investment decisions. which is why FoF is so boring.

kids these days..

youngIBD, i don't know how else to say it but i'm SORRY your job sucks. stop taking your anger out on an internet board! peace homie