Offer help! FoF

Personally, I'd stick with consulting MBP... Then again I don't know what you plan to do in the future.

if your goal is growth/buyout pe then MBB type consulting would be easier than FoF

if you want to life a comfortable life and make good money with okay hours then not consulting

LinkdIn does wonders. I would stick it out in consulting unless you absolutely hate it.

I think most people recommend you to stick in consulting because the skill set you learn in FoF is less transferable to other kinds of career opportunities.

working at a FoF is likely to pay well, shouldn't be too difficult and could even be somewhat interesting and help you to expand your network. Overall, if this is a big fund of funds it could be cool and I'm sure as you progress you could make legit money (by everyone who's not a banker/PE/HF guy's standards). That said, it really does narrow down the types of work you'll likely be doing in the future. From what I've seen once people get in that manager selection mode they usually stay there.... not necessarily a bad thing, but something to be considered. There's other 'manager selection' stuff besides just staying in a FoF too of course (pension consultants, actually working at pensions/endowments, etc)

Congrats man. Is it a pure FoF, or do they do co-investments? If they do some co-investment work, then you could potentially move to PE (difficult, but possible) or move back into consulting.

Well, it's a fund of hedge funds, not for PE. What they do is hedge the tail risk of the funds they invest in by managing some money on their own. Does that count?

Not so much. If they're hedging, they would be using derivative products (options, swaps, etc). Reason I say that co-investments (for PE) could help justify returning to consulting or possibly move to direct investments is because your analysis is taking into consideration the company's performance, competitive landscape, industry analysis, etc. which I'm sure you do some work on for Deloitte.

Analysts/associates at HFoFs work can vary depending on the HFoF. Some HFoFs for example have their junior people do a lot of their own independent research on particular strategies/regions. But generally it's helping with due diligence meetings - interviewing HFs, asking them questions about their strategies, can they justify drop in returns, how do they generate their investment ideas, what their back office/systems dealing with trading and counterparty risk analysis, and so on.

The skill you could pick up is some high level knowledge of markets, given exposure to HFs. But hedging work isn't exactly a lot of fun. Besides long-term career trajectory and exit ops, I think you should also ask yourself if you're interested in the markets.

I think I can guess which HFoF you're referring to, and if it's the one I'm thinking it's a pretty good place to be. Since you do enjoy the markets, then this could be a really good opportunity.

Another view is, you could always get your MBA afterwards and move back to consulting if you don't like this gig after trying it out. Canada is less stringent on having people follow a certain path (e.g., IB --> pre-MBA PE/HF --> top MBA --> post-MBA PE/HF) if you look around on profiles. That said, it's also a much much smaller market, so competition for good places is very tough. Canada doesn't have a lot of HFs, so it could be potentially difficult for you to lateral into a HF. But between consulting and HFoF, I would say the latter brings you closer.

And what are your thoughts on the other comment about FoF being a dying breed?

I haven't dealt with FoFs in awhile, but I think there's always going to be a market for them - though whether or not that market is shrinking and how quickly relates to a number of factors. Some factors off the top of my head: large pension funds in US are starting to consider the direct-PE/internal HF model that Canadian pensions like CPP, OMERS and OTPP have done or similarly endowments becoming more sophisticated; and more large corporates (many once with DB pension plans) are making the switch to defined contribution.

For the institutional investors that are becoming more sophisticated, or at least they are consolidating their portfolios to go with fewer asset managers, there would be a declined demand for FoFs. Because it just represents an extra layer of fees, and with their size, they could potentially gain direct access to good HFs directly, or even consider doing investments in-house.

For large corporate co's - while they are shifting their investment risk away to their employees, the ones that still have DB plans would consider FoFs for diversification reasons. That said, a lot of them still adhere from forms of alternative investments.

In short, I think post-crisis, a lot of hedge funds were shut down, and in turn, HFoFs also faced redemption issues and ones that have underperformed or don't have good access will also face issues raising funds. FoFs do provide some value - diversification, due diligence of their HF portfolio, the client doesn't need to hire their own team to track performance, trades, etc. - but the primary seller that makes or breaks a FoF is its access to difficult/impossible to get into funds. If you want to stay in FoFs, make sure you go to one that has had a long-standing history, and has access to top HFs

Update:

With a great deal of difficulty, I turned down the offer. They asked if it was a matter of compensation because there was still room for negotiation. I then answered that I feel like the timing isn't right, and that I would certainly like to be considered in the future. Thanks for the feedback guys. This was one of the toughest decisions I've made so far.

Hi MBP, I'm actually in a rather similar situation as u.... with a dcm offer at a mid tier boutique and a pm analyst offer at a large fohf... I have indicated my interest in the fof offer but hasn't sign yet... and seeing that u rejected the fof despite the monetary rewards makes me rethink my decision...

I've talked to a lot of people, and the common opinion seems to be that its a good place to end your career, but not a good place to start one. That's why I told them the timing isn't right.

Damn dude, If you could have squirted more money out of them (30k-ish) that would have been an impossible decision. You are a better man than I am.

Lol yeah man it was brutal. Pretty sure I could have squeezed out another 20K on the base. Hopefully my patience pays off in a couple of years.