I see a job opening for an analyst at a small single family office. The fund seems to run along the lines of a mini Yale endowment with investments diversified across equites, bonds, property, PE and hedge funds. Possibly some other investments in there too. The role is to work closely with the fund manager (CIO) covering investment research, portfolio management and administration. This is a small team, so the analyst would cover a broad range of tasks. The fund manager in question has a good cv and a solid reputation. Does anyone have experience working in this sort of generalist role? As I see it, the investment research side would be from a macro point of view, determining the proportional allocations between asset classes and then choosing the best investments/managers within each sector. The admin side is a secondary function I gather. This is definitely not an ops position in disguise. Are there good career paths for someone with experience in an analyst position in an endowment style fund? The obvious exit op is to try to work up to being the fund manager eventually I guess.
Yes I had worked in something like this before. You meet with portfolio managers, building relationships with them, checking on some risk measurements of the portfolio, running some scenario’s on what happens if you add/remove managers… etc Technically, yes it is an “asset mgmt” job. But it doesn’t give you core skills on valuation, or specific industry knowledge, or anything remotely deep. If you are young, I’d say don’t go for it. I will admit this type of job is easy to get into, since no real technical skills are involved, and what’s required is easily taught. If you wanted to use this as a “foot in the door” type of job, and you’re having a lot of trouble landing any other job, it’s ok.
Thanks for the reply. It does seem to be like a fund of funds position except with a broader scope to look at multiple asset classes rather than just hedge funds. I’d say there could be positives in that. You get to take a big picture view of the client’s investments and also the macro environment. Having spent some time in SS research where you can get bogged down in the minutiae of a small number of equities positions, a broader view has its appeals.
This is what I do, except I do this for $1.2 Billion and do all the macroeconomic research and strategic asset allocation part of it. All of the AUM is pooled together so there is very little admin on my end. I will say that it is a good job to build a big rolodex and get in line to make a jump once you have extablished yourself. I already had a PM background before I jumped here though, so I cant speak to the rest. I also help build the models for client risk objectives and have a lot of other functions, so this is only part of my day-to-day.
I guess it would depend on what you want to do going forward. I work in a similar role and I would not discount it as " this type of job is easy to get into, since no real technical skills are involved, and what’s required is easily taught " . You may not make ER/PE/HF money but its definitely challenging , interesting and you will most likely have better hours . You are more of a generalist but I do not see that as a bad thing . Here is a quote from another link I just posted " You may think that you only need expertise in a couple of those areas, but the more of them you understand, the greater your value as an investment professional. The business will try to paint you into narrow lanes; those that know when to veer across them to seize an opportunity have a distinct advantage."
That seems like a cool job. I’d love to more work with different asset classes beyond equities and FI.
@ Carson - Another important thing to note is that the smaller the team and the more hats you wear ----> the more you LEARN … You will at some point meet Investment managers , evaluate portfolio performance which involves all asset classes , research different/new asset classes , review/revise/rebalance asset allocation and maybe even help formulate investment strategies …essentially the entire level 3 curriculum .