I currently work in the corporate actions group in the back office for a trust company. I notify clients of corporate actions, input their responses, allocate stock and cash into accounts properly, and make tax basis adjustments when neccessary. I am interested in any thoughts on the quality of this experience and what might be a good next step to try to move to FO. Also, would this experience be taken much more seriously than that of a fund accountant?
if i were interviewing you for my sort of FO role, i’d ask you to tell me how to arb a corporate action deal. take one… i dunno… let’s play with stock BIF. $9.5 or so closed end fund trading about 20% premium to NAV, filing right now for a rights offer, think it’s going to be a 3 for 1 deal where you can buy an additional share per every 3 rights at NAV. you want to be a FO guy? how would you make money off of this rights offer? would you buy, sell, sell short, combrination of those, what kind of $$ can you make, and what are the risks of whatever strategy you choose to employ? that’s the difference b/t FO and BO in my eyes. good if you can do the BO work, good if you’re dilligent, hard working, detail oriented, blah blah blah. now apply yourself and show me something if you want to sit in a more FO role. if you really got a lot out of this job and get why you’re there doing what you’re doing, i bet there are a lot of risk arb funds that’d take you on board happily.
bannisja Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > if i were interviewing you for my sort of FO role, > i’d ask you to tell me how to arb a corporate > action deal. take one… i dunno… let’s play > with stock BIF. $9.5 or so closed end fund > trading about 20% premium to NAV, filing right now > for a rights offer, think it’s going to be a 3 for > 1 deal where you can buy an additional share per > every 3 rights at NAV. you want to be a FO guy? > how would you make money off of this rights offer? > would you buy, sell, sell short, combrination of > those, what kind of $$ can you make, and what are > the risks of whatever strategy you choose to > employ? > > that’s the difference b/t FO and BO in my eyes. > good if you can do the BO work, good if you’re > dilligent, hard working, detail oriented, blah > blah blah. now apply yourself and show me > something if you want to sit in a more FO role. > if you really got a lot out of this job and get > why you’re there doing what you’re doing, i bet > there are a lot of risk arb funds that’d take you > on board happily. Maybe I’m wrong as I’ve never worked in Corp actions but I’ve worked in the back office w/ these guys and 95% sure their job didn’t prepare them to answer any of these questions. I suggest you get in where you fit in…beggars can’t be choosers but don’t venture TOO far away from what you ultimately want to end up doing in the FO. Also I don’t know exactly what you do on a daily basis but I was a fund accountant and I think a fund accountant offers a more complete point of view as far as funds, investment management, etc. are concerned. Ie- as a fund accountant they deal the end result of your work (securities in their fund split, merged, etc.) and many other aspects of the fund.