Advice to Job Seekers: Don't Sleep on Asset Management
I saw another post on the site where someone was asking about full-time acquisitions opportunities, and a few of the comments mentioned being open to AM roles as well. I wanted to make a separate post on this to give those comments a little more visibility and explain why, in my opinion, AM is something to be open to in this job market rather than waiting around for a perfect acquisitions role to come along. This is not to say not to apply to acq roles, but just to rethink your job search strategy if that's only what you're targetting.
Be realistic about the market rather than interpreting a lack of acq interviews/offers as something being wrong with your background. You can have a great resume, network aggressively, know how to model, interview well, etc. There are still only so many seats available when the underlying business isn't doing many transactions. AM is different bc the existing assets don't disappear with lack of transactions; those assets still need to be managed, and in a difficult market, they can actually require more work due to refinancings, delayed exits, changing business plans due to interest rate environment, etc. etc. IMO, great opp to be working directly with investments while waiting for transaction volume to recover.
TLDR; Don't only target acquisitions in this market, apply to AM roles also but still have a story on why AM over acq besides the job market is bad
And don't be worried about getting "stuck" in such a position, if asset management isn't your life-long goal. I've seen that sentiment around here and it doesn't match the lived experience for plenty of people I know, both in the current downturn and going as far back as the Great Recession. Ask your principals and CEOs what they did during the Great Recession to keep the lights on.
Does that count for LIHTC AM?
You have no business being in acquisitions if you don't understand operations/asset management. As someone who runs an acq team I would not hire someone who hasn't spent time in an AM position learning the day to day of running a property.
What are your thoughts on debt originations (core to high yield) vs asset management experience for someone looking to transition into acquisitions
Originations will have higher pay + longer hours and also very market dependent but will have great exit opps. Not saying AM doesn't but have seen originations jump to AM and vice-versa. For us (the AM team), we rely (and thankful) for the originations team to bring in deals for us to manage.
Have also seen people jump to acquisitions from AM down the line since a lot of skills like understanding risk and sponsor relationships transfer over well.
Thanks. I should've specified that it was more of a question of debt originations vs equity asset management than debt asset management. Sounds like a broadly exposed equity AM team would be a great learning opportunity
Started in debt originations (also touched asset management cuz all the deals went to shit) and jumped to acquisitions after 4 years. It honestly was a bit of a transition at first because I was previously more concerned about a credit agreement / conservative underwriting compared to figuring out how to make a business plan.
AM is probably more relatable tbh.
Hours in debt originations / acquisitions are both worse than debt and equity AM.
It depends on firm.
Let’s use extremes: AM at a firm that only owns stable class A quality buildings and deal team handles buying, financing, selling? Seems like any job is a good one right now but I’m not sure that is “great experience” learning wise.
AM at a firm that is buying riskier assets, executing aggressive biz plans and AM team handles leasing financing and dispo? Hell yeah. Not only good experience but probably better learning for acquisitions one day than most acq roles.
most will fall somewhere in middle but firm to firm varies so much in RE (same with acquisitions) and I have seen neutered AM roles so I agree with OP’s premise but DD what the scope of the job is.
If most fall in the middle, this is really a moot point, and the same with extremes can be applied to any CRE role including acq roles.
I’m not sure how it’s a moot point, unless all specified career advice is.
People may have multiple offers or they don’t have unlimited time to apply to unlimited jobs and maybe don’t know what to look for to weigh those offers or how to filter down to roles they really are going to take a hard run at.
You can’t know everything before you’re in the role but if your goal is to switch into an acq seat I’m offering things to look for in AM roles that I think would make for translatable experience past AUM, brand name, salary, bonus.
I'm not sleeping on AM, I just can't get an offer there either...
What does acquisition role mean? Like investment banking?
Yep ur cooked.
😭🤭
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