I'm specifically looking at fixed income divisions and wondering who the best players are without using AUM as the benchmark for "best" firms. I'd like to get a better idea on comp, culture, hours, prestige, exit ops across the industry to use as metrics for ranking different firms. However, most rankings just name the "best" firms by AUM when I look around.
How do smaller $100 - $300bn AUM firms like doubline, tcw, capital group match up against shops with $1,000bn+ like PIMCO, Vangaurd, Blackrock? Is there a group of EB vs. BB equivalents in Asset Management and a general consensus on how they stack up against each other / pros and cons of working at larger vs smaller shops?
Any insight into how the above-mentioned firms' fixed income divisions rank against each other and for what reasons as well as any additional comps in the space would be much appreciated.
PIMCO is arguably the leader in FI. They have the deepest bench of research and use it extensively as they are an active manager. Very little passive benchmark stuff going on there and they typically create alpha. I do business with most of the firms mentioned by OP. They are collaborative and require their employees to constantly learn and maintain a deep understanding of macro econ, global events, and their influence on the markets. Essentially have their own internal rating agency to compare with the major agencies.
Don't know anything about comp. Getting to PM, Account Manager, or Product Manager (essentially running a business) requires a strong MBA. You can always start as an analyst, stay for a few yrs, go get the MBA, and come back at a much higher role / comp. They highly encourage analysts / associates to earn their CFA. Culture is a fast paced meritocracy with a lot of teamwork.
Thank you for the insight. Can you speak to some names that come to mind as strong players in fixed income comparable to PIMCO (Your Tier A and Tier B list, other mentions)?
Also, any pros / cons that you can speak to when considering working for a smaller aum shop like doubleline vs a pimco?
From a competition standpoint I would say Tier 1 is PIMCO & Blackrock. I'd put the others in Tier 2. More to do with size than anything. Blackrock is huge, the largest AM in the world by a long shot but much of that is in equities. Also they have created a very big ETF engine (passive). Most people talk about passive being better, lower costs, PMs don't beat the indices anyway, etc. I see that to be the case way more in equities than in FI. FI is far more complex than equities (and overall a much bigger market). To over simplify, I use this example. A stock of company X is priced at Y period. Of course there are options and synthetics. But the stock itself is a known X. There is no known bond pricing. At any one time, company X may have 10 different series of bonds outstanding, all with different terms. That's just corp bond issues. There's all the gov't agencies, emerging markets, etc. And of course derivatives. So being an active manager, finding opportunities for alpha, is very important. That's why PIMCO is king. They have the internal resources and scale to make that happen.
No idea about pros or cons working for the smaller shops. I would guess they have a faster career growth guess. Lots of people go to PIMCO and stay forever. You can view that as slow upper mobility (because spots aren't vacated) or you can view that as they stay for a reason.
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