I have an interview for the following position and would appreciate if you could comment on the nature of the work etc. Is this a middle office role? back office? I’m currently working as a 2nd yr analyst in investment management supporting portfolio management teams. The team’s primary responsibility is to enhance the sales effort through product development, technical sales support, and delivery of portfolio construction expertise to financial institutions serving retail and higher-net-worth investors, corporate retirement plans, and some direct institutional investors. This individual will be primarily responsible for technical and analytical support associated with placement of products on distributor platforms where home office research / due diligence groups have significant influence on product selection and portfolio implementation. Principal Responsibilities: • Work in close coordination with Key Account relationship management teams to identify product placement opportunities in full consideration of firm’s capabilities, performance, and the competitive landscape. • Develop deep understanding of our clients’ due diligence / manager selection processes and construct targeted, thoughtful analysis in support of product placement opportunities. Such analyses should reflect a strong command of offerings and be well supported by quantitative and qualitative insights. • Develop and update various standard competitive analysis deliverables for relationship managers and other client facing sales teams. • Work with senior team members to develop actionable product positioning ideas for client facing sales teams based on unique capabilities, changes in the capital markets and other thematic drivers. • Field data requests from senior management, sales force, portfolio management teams, marketing and client firms • Other ad hoc analyses and project work as requested Experience/Skills: • Solid understanding of investment theory and previous exposure to mutual fund or other packaged products • Demonstrated aptitude for technical analysis • Command of various industry databases and analytical tools (Morningstar, Lipper, FactSet, Bloomberg) a very strong plus • Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively with others • Demonstrated proficiency in multi-tasking, problem solving, and management of deadlines • Excellent work ethic and attention to detail • Excellent communication skills • Commercial perspective
if it were me, which I know it is not, I would keep the existing job.
Its pretty much a manager selection job. Learn about their strategies, research them, check their info etc. Not the most exciting job in the world. Middle office I guess. What do you do right now? The responsbilities?
exactly, post what you do in your current job so we can at least compare the two
Thanks for the input…my current role is a combination of portfolio analyst and corp. fin analyst roles. I conduct market research including financial analysis and due diligence for a couple of portfolios, review financial and operating models and provide revenue analysis for monthly and quarterly earnings reports, do some performance analysis as well. What kind of a career would a position like this lead to? I would love to stay at my current job except there’s way too much uncertainty and I could get laid off any day hence the reason for my search.
The thing that sketches me to it is I dont see it as a manager selection job like BiPolar said. It seems more geared towards whatever manager your sales group wants to sell, you gotta prep materials to make it look good and get them what they need. Its like the guy that preps the materials for a fund wholesaler to go to their clients and say “you should put money in this fund cuz (hands over your materials)” Am I close or not, I dont know what type of company its for
yea i think it’s a little bit of both. The recruiter who got me the interview made it sounds like it’s a manager selection, due dilegence but reading about it makes it sound more like a wholesale packaged product type of a role with manager selection responsibilities as well. The position is at a large asset management firm in NY and it’s within their Portfolio Strategy Group. Do you guys think someone with this background could end up at a FoF in a couple of years?
Maybe. The more time spent on manager selection/research the better. The other crap is just that, crap. Just my opinion. It sounds equivalent to a sell-side position, where you eventually would like to get to the buy-side for a FoF. You might wanna ask what types of managers you will be following, that will help as if it is govt bond funds then that will not be as helpful as if it is Long/Short HFs…which would be much better if you wanna get to a FoF someday and/or some sort of consulting gig.