Which has more interesting work AM or Acquisitions?
What role has more interesting work Asset Management or Acquisitions? Disregard pay, status, hours, and everything else besides how fun/interesting the role is.
I feel like if you Google it you would find the answer but I’m in AM, and it’s quite boring
AM seems dope because you seem to goof off most of the time
They are two entirely different jobs, which means they'll appeal to entirely different people.
Asset management is the more important one for driving value, for what it's worth.
Lmao asset management is clearly more boring and these guys must be in AM if they say otherwise.
The pay difference is significant too.
I am in Acqui at "Top 3" firm, and my friend works in AM. Our base is the same. He gets off work at 3:00PM every day and takes several hour long lunches every day. Obviously bonus is different but really considering moving to his team given his hours and WLB. Dude is living the dream.
I moved from acq to a hybrid AM / acq role which is more like 80% am and 20% acq, it is mind numbingly boring work. Constant quarterly valuations
AM at a local or regional developer can be sweet gig.. not as saddled with boring reports/valuation work. For instance, we lean on our sr. asset mgt during the schematic and DD phase to opine on amenity programming, maintenance, janitorial, trash, coworking, storage, etc. since they're closer to the actual building operations of our existing portfolio. Ours prob only works 30-35 hours and makes Id guess $150-175+ in a low COL state. Agreed with Ozy above that AM is more important than Acq, at least in development. Good dev guys can handle acquiring a site.. same can't be said about performing AMs job.
I suppose M&A is less monotonous? At least in senior positions.
Acquisitions is more Interesting as a whole, and it's not close. There are some AM jobs that are more interesting as they let you act like the property owner (vs. those at larger shops where you're more or less a quarterly report/valuation monkey). That said, once you start regarding all of those things you didn't want to pay attention to AM becomes much more appealing.
Worked in a hospitality acq. role for a year at a family office and then transferred to a AM role at a multifamily merchant build shop.
This is the annoying answer, but it depends. Large vs small shop, debt vs equity vs dev shops, regional vs nation wide, etc. Short answer is most people will say acquisitions is more interesting, because you're deal chasing. Always a new deal, always onto the next. AM is the "boring"/"real" work of actually implementing the business plan, but there's a spectrum of work that falls under that. If you work AM at a bank you can literally just be reviewing construction draws all day, where as at a dev shop (my current role) you can be involved in the UW, design, and construction parts of the timeline on brand new deals all the time.
Acquisitions can be a grind and it's awesome when you're getting deals done, but what I hated most was doing multiple days/weeks of work on a deal and it goes no where - your MD's could give a shit because they're not the one staring at the UW model for 8+ hours a day, they just want to get the fees flowing.
Think a good question to ask if what are you looking for in a role - I personally didn't like acq. lifestyle but the amount of reps you get in is great, and you can learn a lot in just 1-2 years and sharpen your excel skills, which can be used anywhere. AM is steadier without as much peak hours and stress IMO. If you want to be someone who can try to produce/run your own shop eventually you'll want to be in a acq. type role, especially if you are younger.
A lot of the times AM is seen as an afterthought because they're not the ones driving revenue for a firm like acq/dev, but if you find a shop where AM is involved in a the whole process of a deal then you can get a lot out of it. Acq is more theoretical and AM is the reality within the moment - good AM teams can be the difference between barely scraping by or crushing returns.
Many variables to consider, but can't go wrong either way. A lot of shops will have cross-pollination between the departments. Wouldn't recommend a siloed position in AM, but if you can get to a shop where the teams is involved in the whole process you'll learn a lot.
Hey thanks for your detailed response. How do you know that the specific AM team at that shop is not boring work (such as cross pollination between jobs and not just quarterly valuation/investment reporting)? It sounds like the type of shop like development, regional, large, can be some indicators as to what the expected work is like, but how do you actually find out? Would you have to get an employee in the department on the phone, job description, or something else?
Of course my friend, happy to help.
Yeah it can be tough to get a straight answer, especially in this hiring market where people are moving jobs at an insane pace. Some teams could say whatever you want to get you in the door. It sucks but you really don't know until you get there, but your instinct is in the right direction.
Not going to pretend to know everything, but I'll speak from my experience. The way I view it is I break it down (apologies if you already know this) on a debt vs equity, and LP vs GP spectrum (kind of like a quadrant). Usually equity is "sexier" and debt is more "boring". LP is more hands off with mainly deploying capital, and GP you're running the actual projects day to day. With that said if you're an analyst for a debt capital partner, from what I hear you're reporting on KPI's, P&L's variances, valuations - the shit no one wants to do lol. GP side you're the person taking the picture of you putting the shovel into the ground (even though 90% of those momo's never worked blue collar in their life, but that's another topic). You'll be the one making the decision on what the unit layouts and lobby designs will look like.
I always like to ask "what's your daily interface with other departments you have on a day-to-day basis?", "does your team have exposure to the entire life cycle of the project/cradle-to-grave?" type questions to get a better answer. Would try to get some one-on-one time with a 1-2 year analyst at the company so you get a more candid response. Job descriptions can be okay, but most acq. roles will say "can do everything in excel modeling, can work in a fast pace environment, etc." and AM roles will have "track portfolio KPI's, maximize value, etc."
Size of the shop is always one of the bigger factors, like you mentioned. Smaller shops you'll have a broader scope of work, whereas at a larger shop you have a deeper scope of work on a smaller set of tasks.
I have done both Acquisitions and AM. Currently in AM at the LP level (although we are fairly active on day to day and have a couple assets that we are 100% equity so basically like GP). And by LP, I don’t mean some private shop or pension fund just deploying LP Capital into funds. More in line with say, a PGIM. I enjoy AM more. Everyday is different assuming you are at a firm that just doesn’t stick their AM team to a quarterly reporting function. One day I can be focused on Operations/Capex next doing hold/sell analysis, another assisting our acquisitions team in their UW, JV calls, etc.
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