Valuation to S&T
Hi everyone,
A little over a year ago, I started my career at a respectable, non big-4 valuation group (Kroll/D&P, HL, Lincoln). So far I've done well. The job is fine, but at the end of the day it's not something I want to do for a long time. Base is very low (~75k in HCOL) and the bonus doesn't make up for the hours I put in. I by no means have extravagant standards, but financially, things are pretty tight even with a fairly minimalistic lifestyle and multiple room mates. If I loved the work, I could probably live with the pay, but I don't. I feel like the work is fairly meaningless and we don't add value to our clients. As such, I've started to think about what my next move may be.
Most of the exits the team has seem to be to internal valuation at a fund with the occasional person leaving for a MM IB type role. I know for a fact I don't want to do the former. Even if pay was slightly better, I know I still wouldn't get any fulfillment out of the position. I also tend to think that could pigeon hole me permanently in a role I don't want. The latter seems more appealing, but at the end of the day, I don't know if I would really be happy in corporate finance.
What I've always consistently wanted out of my career has been a role in public markets. I've came close to making the move out of college both for junior summer and full time, but unfortunately it hasn't worked out so far. There are things I would have done differently looking back, but a lot of it was just bad luck including a process getting canceled 5+ interviews in shortly before my final round due the team's MD leaving.
Realistically, is there a way I could position myself to make my experience attractive to an S&T desk. I think the most logical angle would be to try and land a position on a prime brokerage team (since I have experience being a service provider for PE funds and have a pretty good understanding of the business side of alternative investing, I'd think some of it could be transferable to the business side how HFs look at things) but I'm really open to anything. I also have considered trying to make the move to ER/credit research, but my team doesn't do much ground up modeling which could be an obstacle when interviewing.
To transition from a valuation role to Sales & Trading (S&T), here’s what you need to focus on based on the most helpful WSO content:
1. Positioning Your Experience
2. Networking
3. Skill Development
4. Overcoming Obstacles
5. Interview Preparation
6. Alternative Paths
Final Thoughts
Breaking into S&T from a valuation role is challenging but not impossible. Focus on networking, building market knowledge, and positioning your experience as relevant to the desk. Prime brokerage or research roles could be logical entry points, but persistence and preparation will be key.
Sources: Advice Needed - Quant to S&T - How to sell my experience?, Non-target average student declined BB trading ops offer, now having some second thoughts, Conversation with an Equities Sales Trader, How likely is it to get fired in S&T?
Try CLO structuring or other structured products desks with a valuation background
This probably makes the most sense given what my skillset is. With that said, I don't handle securitized products. I see you're listed as a commodities desk, but do you have insight into how much of a CLO structuring role is understanding how market movements would affect the broadly syndicated loans underpinning the facility versus understanding structure of the facility itself?
In my current role, we aren't building models from the ground up, but I'd think a decent amount of that would be handled the DCM or coverage team at a bank handling the origination. We instead are mainly looking at what spread private credit club deals would demand if the loans were sold on a secondary market and using that to back into a price. To do that, we're mainly looking at changes in the yield curve since origination and then applying a risk premium based on an estimated credit rating. It's not 1 to 1 obviously, but I tend to think there would be overlap in the skillset.
I feel like I have a good understanding of the securitization process, but I haven't dealt with it from a professional perspective. That's obviously where the learning curve would be. I imagine it could take some convincing, but I'd be more than happy to restart as a first-year analyst for any of these role and I'd think my background would be a plus.
in similar spot
ER/CR/distressed or desk analyst given valuation background would have been my first suggestion, but lack of ground up valuation might make it challenging.
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