| Unlike many, back in 2008 my MBA classmate won an Associate job offer with the Investment Banking Division of an American bulge bracket bank. He accepted and started in their London office.
After 4 months I expected him to be delighted to be still so gainfully employed. After all, jobs were (and are) so hard to find and other big banks were going to the wall. I was wrong. "The market just sucks", he said after 4 months in. "No deals. I get no work to do. No bonus ... but I will have to keep slaving for the bank."
So when one of the people he happened to be having drinks with on evening asked him whether he was interested in joining their start-up fund in San Francisco, he decided to take the gamble.
Starting a hedge fund in such turbulent times sounded either naïve or reckless. When people are struggling to secure any job possible and employers are looking to sack employees, who would leave a £60,000+ salary? Whilst there was a potentially huge upside, attracting investors to the fund in such a risk adverse market was hardly going to be a walk in the park.
It was a bold bet which paid off. In December 2008, he became the fourth member of the new hedge fund as a junior partner. Following a handsome gain in Q1, the fund saw a 13 percent return in April alone, riding on the wave of the stock market rally.
More importantly, he is a lot happier. The role is exactly what he always wanted. The fund uses equities and derivatives, typically to invest in commodity and energy companies. Since the firm is so small, he has a huge amount of responsibility and does almost everything from analysing industry data, modeling and due diligence to marketing to investors.
He even gets time to do yoga after work. |
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