Hi Guys,
Was wondering if anyone could give any insight on exit opps for Sanford Bernstein. Their business model suggests that they employ associates for 5ish years and then expect them to move on. Do they place well for HFs considering their research is up there with the best?
Thanks
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In reality it's probably less than 5 years. You'll get looks from places that consider sell-side equity research backgrounds most definitely, including HFs. The ones that exclusively focus on IBD background people will, naturally, not care that you're from Bernstein as much. It is what you make of it though.
It's somewhat difficult to generalize exit opps for entry-level roles at Bernstein, since they hire fewer junior associates than some other places. Instead, they seem to take on a lot of "senior research associates" from MBA programs, industry roles, other equity research shops, other parts of finance (e.g. i-banking), etc.
But based on the few people that I know from there, it's not at all uncommon to see associates exiting to decent-sized (>$500 million AUM) hedge funds after 2-4 years. There's also a good number of people who move to other strong equity research shops, since that's the only way you can really get promoted above the associate level if you stay on the sell-side. I've been told that a smattering of other people have also moved to long-only mutual funds, as well as roles in corporate strategy/operations. Overall, very few people stay 5 years. Hope this helps!
They are one of the best shops, you will have great access to buyside firms and other sell-side opportunities.
Thanks for the answers guys.
One more question - I've been offered an internship position with an analyst at a MM bank.
The analyst is ranked in the regional overall top 10 by Thomson Reuters. How are their analyst awards regarded in the industry? Would the ranking help me get interviews applying to grad research associate roles later this year?
The only rankings ER people tend to care about is Institutional Investor (II) and Extel with the latter being a very distant second. So no, most likely that in itself will not help you in any way, but if it's a decent name bank with a decently-ranked team where you get to do fairly useful / impactful stuff that will help tremendously.
I read WSO comments on Bernstein before deciding to accept a job there. I am no longer there (joined buy-side) and wanted to offer my two cents for anyone who is considering joining:
If you graduate from HSW, be careful. Good news: they will hire you at all cost because they just want a token from the top schools, Bad news: it feels weird to be hired as a token.
Another warning: the associate director reads all your email and chat history on a regular basis, so be careful.
*Macro- sell-side is dying. Everyone tries to jump to the buy side. All associates/senior associates at Bernstein secretly interview for buy side jobs, regardless of their tenure there.
Bernstein has a good reputation from the outside but at the end of the day non-terrible sell-side firms are not that different. Bernstein doesn't have the resources to cover all sector and all company as JPM for example.
Work: My biggest issue with sell-side work is it is hard to be intellectually honest. More often than not, you already have a buy/sell rating and you just collect evidence in the report to support it. I think >70-80% of sell-side reports are buy rating at Bernstein? I think there is benefit working for the analyst because they are usually the industry expert with real knowledge, so if you take advantage of that and the analysts are nice people, you can definitely learn. Just be mindful that most analysts are subject expert but are not good stock picker. So you should rely on them on their expertise but you still need to practice on your own for your modeling, pitching, market sense, marco and all that.
The culture is highly political and competitive. I know they say it is academic and humble culture in the propaganda video but that is not true. The director of research in charge of junior associates and senior associates is especially manipulative. She will play tricks to let you and your analyst owe her. An example is she will tell your analyst that you dislike the team and she will tell you that your analyst is unsatisfied with your work. And then she will step in as the helpful person to help balance the relationship between you and your analyst. But if you compliment her enough, she might like you more and she might help you getting into third or forth tier buy side firms 4 years down the road.
Your fate depends on your analyst: there are some great analysts at Bernstein who are both kind and knowledgeable about the industries they cover. There are also analyst who are really tough to work with, for example, IT Hardware. The analyst is top ranked but his team has the toughest schedule, you might need to work till midnight quite often.
Internal transfer to different teams is possible if the associate director or research likes you. I never tried or was able to get her to like me so I cannot offer any advice here.
Pay: check h1b salary database** (just google it and pick first link), it has the exact salary they pay for junior and senior associates each year. It is def below management consulting for post-MBA. Bonus is not very good, don't get fooled by glassdoor data because there was a few huge data points that skewed the range to 300,000 all in? That is FAR from reality.
Exit opp: Rarely do people get promoted to analyst at Bernstein. That is a good thing and their key value prop to the street. People do make it to the buy side but it is an uphill battle. There are just equal number of people give up either because of their analyst or because of the toxic culture instilled by the associate director of research that they jumped to other sell-side shops continue to be an associate. Jump to the buy side is definitely possible. Will you have a better chance because you work at Bernstein? No. Will you have a better chance because you work hard on modeling, industry knowledge and stock picking? Definitely yes.
In summary, I am biased because I really disliked my experience there. I think the company can be so much better without the toxic culture and placement stress created by the associate director of research. But she is probably there forever. So if you want to work for the buy side and Bernstein is the only relevant offer, take it. If you have other options, I would consider carefully. If culture factor is not important and you are great at dealing with difficult people, Bernstein might be right for you.
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