Best route to distressed HF/ special sits fund?

I would focus on some of the smaller shops for HY / special sits desks. Cowen (old CRT), Imperial, Guggenheim, GMP, Cantor, RWP, Baird have good HY / event-driven product in my opinion. Blair is working on building out their HY business right now too and have a couple good distressed analysts. I don't know what recruiting is like for them though, but you're right the desks are small. I actually think I remember seeing a junior desk analyst posting for Cowen not too long ago (their HY biz is in Stamford). I would think it'd be easier to stand out at some of these places and I think exposure to clients is probably better too. I do really like Stifel's special sits desk too.

Of the BBs, I like WF, DB, Barc, and JPM published HY research although can't speak to the quality of their desk analysts. RBC has good HY desk analysis and tends to be more event-driven than the others. (In general, "event-driven" is overused in a lot of the product across the board in my view). I know Citi and CS (I think) have HY desk analysts but I really haven't spoken with em much. GS and MS have good HY strategy research but I don't see much from them in the way of individual credit analysis.

You could also try maybe HY sales. I see sales -> research a little.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not all of the above cover distressed scenarios. GMP / Cowen / RWP / Imperial / Cantor / Stifel do for certain, but for the most part the above only focus on performing HY credit. So if you're interested in learning distressed specifically, you gotta be at a place that doesn't mind dedicating brain power to tracking the Ch 11 process. For more esoteric special sits, Cowen does a lot with converts / SPACs / other weird rights offerings and Imperial likes reorg equities.

The problem is that you don't want to spend too much time in equities that you become type cast as an equity guy. Difficult to go equity -> credit if you're too far into your career.

Not all of these firms take junior people either, and I'm not sure which have dedicated training programs. It can be difficult to learn the nuances of credit on your own, I think on the job experience is important. I think I remember hearing that Barcs HY desk takes one junior a year or something but I could be wrong.

I spent all of my internships in value equities and moved to HY / distressed for FT. My pitch was that I spent a lot of time learning about exceptional businesses but wanted more exposure to the factors that could lead to a good business failing, and then the restructuring process that helped fix it. I also stressed that I felt I had a solid understanding of equity, but couldn't be a well rounded investor if I didn't understand the credit part of the capital structure. The latter part really resonated with people and I had a lot of success with it.