There's been a couple of posts on hedge fund exit opportunities this year and I've seen some anecdotal evidence from those posts on realized exits. Would like to try my luck and check in with the more senior folks (maybe 5+ years of experience in the hedge fund world) in this forum to see if anyone else can share any specific exits you've observed in your circle in recent times.
For example, have you seen hedge fund analysts leave to go to investor relations / corporate development / in-house strategy / long-only or sovereign wealth funds? Or any other exits for the matter given I'm just looking to get a feel of where people end up should they decide to leave the hedge fund industry.
I know that most people hop within the space to another multi-manager but that's not what I'm looking for. I also know where you exit largely depends on coverage universe / sector / strategy but would be amazing if anyone could share actual, anecdotal career paths.
Thanks friends!
Bumping.
You can just search on Linkedin.
Bumping this too. Am in the same boat and have the same question. Would really appreciate anyone’s insight/anecdotes.
I’ve seen folks going to B-school to transition to industry/non-finance roles, but generally they were on the younger side (ie 2 years banking + 2-3 years HF). But am wondering about analysts/PMs who’ve been in the HF world for 5-10 years and want to transition out into industry/non-finance - is that even a possibility? Or is it even possible to get into a top B-school at that age?
i've seen examples of all the things you mentioned (friends and former coworkers)...but all depend on a combo of specific experience + an opening where desired criteria matches experience + networking (having a personal connection to grease the wheels)
rarely will the above jobs be looking to specifically hire hedge fund analysts...but since you often have the same skills and practical experience as other career routes...what you really need is the ability to have a convo with the hiring manager...and so that means networking...which i'm sure you've seen over and over.
I left a USD 4 bn event-driven fund (I focused on credit) back in 2016 so here is what I have seen. The most common exit was to a long-only seat in a lower cost of living city. I was based in our London office but the guys who left our NYC office ended up in university endowments(Pittsburgh)/family offices(1 in Florida and another in Phoenix)/long only shops (Janus Henderson and WAMCO). Most of these guys had a wife and kids and just wanted to escape the grind of NYC and were willing to take a pay cut to do so. In terms of interesting exits, I saw 1 guy leave to become head of finance & business development at a life science company. He specialized in healthcare at our fund so had a background in the sector. I haven't seen any IR exits as they tend to hire former sell-side guys who covered the company and know how to talk the talk to other sell-side investors. Probably the most unusual move I saw was a senior guy from NYC who moved his family to New Zealand to focus on managing forestry assets.
Thanks, this is really useful input.
In terms of those you've seen leave for long-only seats, do you have any idea (ballpark-wise) in terms of reduction they took in terms of total comp? Seems to me it's a common path to take if you're leaving for work-life balance reasons, so I definitely see this as a possibility in the future.
As for yourself, would you mind elaborating on what you've been up to since leaving the hedge fund space in 2016?
Thanks a lot for your responses, the insights are deeply appreciated.
So the funny thing is that HF comp is completely overstated on these forums and I actually make more now in my LO seat (large bank owned asset manager) than I ever made in my HF seat. However, my comp is capped at around 300k (I have 7 years of credit experience) whereas former colleagues of mine who work in the merger arb/HF side of the business have been making all in comp of over 1m for the last few years now. I think LO comp in the US is better and I know it's possible to make 400-500k as an experienced analyst (say 7-10 years) but those seats are harder to come by. I think my US colleague who left our fund to go to Pittsburgh took a 50% all in cut and he was making close to USD 1 m at our fund before he was pushed out.
The real change is in culture which is what I miss most about the HF space. You will find that large asset managers are risk averse, bureaucratic and pay is based more on rank than performance.
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