Hi, I’m a long/short analyst in a mid size hedge fund in London, around 5billion AUM. Using fundamental analysis for equity, mainly covering Asian stock. I previously interned in GS London, and worked in Hedge Fund directly after graduation. Also, if anyone is doing fund of fund or family office, email me. Q&A
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How was recruiting out of undergrad? How difficult was it to find a hf straight from undergrad?
It is difficult, but now they start to recruit undergrad now as they started to develop homegrown talent. With right networking and Internship, it's possible
is your strategy market neutral? do you use the sell side?
Not neutral at the moment, for sell side, i have few people i usually listen to their pitch
Given the overall uncertainty surrounding Brexit, how is the industry in London at the moment? Both from a recruiting standpoint and any other possible affects on the finance industry such as ease of doing business.
It's difficult, we're preparing for an office in central Europe as well. Recruitment doesn't being affected that much, at least in the fund business. Definitely not easy, but mainly due to uncertainty of world, not brexit by itself
how do you source ideas?
Sell side/ broker, but only some times Own research and analysis given my asian background
Echoing the above. What's sentiment there like? Is the uncertainty around Brexit causing anxiety? Do you see yourself in the UK long term because of it?
It's lots of uncertainty. But for me, I'm now living betwen paris and London. given my bad french, hopefully can stay in London if things don't go too bad
What's your sentiment on the scene in Germany?
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Do you feel disadvantaged covering Asian stocks while located in Europe? If so how do you overcome it?
If you don't feel you're at a disadvantage, why do you think you can do as good a job as the guy who sits in Tokyo/Singapore/Hong Kong/etc.?
There's. But Asian hedge fund is not strong at all. And all big funds' asian office is more of a presense. It's a bit disadvantage, but i try to combine my information here and also intel from Asia. I wake up at 6am everyday for communication with asia side
My post visibly didn't go through previously. Could you expland on HF recruiting out of UG. I guess you were attending one of LSE/Oxbridge. You mentionned netowrking, but was this job sourced through netowrking? Or were they openly recruiting? Which division did you intern at GS? And why did you decide not to stay at a large bank offering a much more structured training program?
I talked to several PMs, brought my strength. The recruitment is painful, they barely have open positions and Headhunters don’t care about analyst.
For GS, it’s still a bank, quite boring
Did you have a portfolio of actionable ideas while networking into the HF? My goal is to be an analyst at a distressed debt fund, to get there I will most likely try to break-into RX and work on the client side to build connections. I'm at a UK non-target and the only other non-target guy I know of who went straight to an investment team under a value mandate did the whole direct mail campaign with actionable ideas thing.
Are there any 'outside the box' ways of breaking in that you advocate for. Congrats on UG -> HF, did you always deep down know this will happen (high self-efficacy) or did you stumble into it?
Well, i’m aware of my strength and I made sure I present them. And i’ve planned for a hf role after graduation since early. But still, need to have a good resume first, so did few internship
Thank you. If you don't mind, what were your key strengths and how did you present them?
Do you think that getting into HFs is more and more for sector specialists than for generalists? Your analysis is purely fundamental or you do add a quantitative approach to it?
Sector, unless some funds do regional focus. My approach is fundamental, I only use some coding to help my work
Thanks for doing this.
What’s the ratio, would you say, of L/S hedge fund analysts coming from IBD vs HF analysts coming from equity research?
I’m currently starting off on equity research with the plan to move into L/S and want to correctly position myself ahead of it. Thanks
Mostly comes from IBD. For guys from research, when they come to HF, they’ll likely still be in research role. But most research role nowadays are quant research
how do you see profiles coming from model risk (quant risk) or quant analytics for L/S funds? especially what if they have experience in hedging position as well as product knowledge (exotic/hybrids and plain vanilla eqd)?
What specific experience do you think recruiters for L/S HFs look for in IBD analysts?
Is public M&A experience key?
Well, in hedge fund, it’s mainly the PM’s decision. HR doesn’t make much difference. For PM, experience maybe helpful to set a meeting with him. But then need to show the real work
thanks for doing this.
How is comp like (roughly)?
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