I'm an undergrad interested in breaking into HF. I've been receiving comments that Bridgewater and Point72, both of which have structured undergrad recruiting, aren't good for a long-term career. Does anyone have any insight on this and is it really better to start in IB rather than at either of these two firms?
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Bridgewater isn't so ideal due to the two-year non-compete, the incredibly niche skill set you develop, and the lack of upward mobility (or so I've heard) beyond the junior levels. Would not say this is the case at P72, where mobility is promoted. My guess is the reason people say so is do to the multi-manager model run at the firm and the risk of pods getting cut after hitting risk limits; to my knowledge, turnover is lower than at Citadel/Millennium/BAM due to internal culture initiatives.
Why is Bridgewater niche? Too large a firm with too few decision makers to have any reasonable output from a junior?
Bridgewater has 2 year non-compete?
How extensive is it?
And what do they pay you will enforcing it?
I only know of it anecdotally through friends and acquaintances, but it bars you from working in the industry for two years after leaving the firm. The most restrictive clause I'm aware of in HF. I'm not sure if they pay anything during the period.
They have to pay you... you could go fishing for two years and still get paid. Other option is to go work in California where non-compete is illegal.
Ya but on non competes what do they pay you? Like citadel non competes all the time. But what do you get paid then. I haven’t asked but taking two years off of you career could be a lot of money. Is it just salary or they pay you an expected bonus too.
Just salary and benefits, no expected bonus. What Citadel does is that all the bonuses accumulated from previous have a big deferred component. Your options are to sit out a required period and collect the deferred from citadel, have another firm buy out your deferred, or go work elsewhere before expiration of garden and give up the deferred.
Non compete much less restrictive at all-cash bonus firms like Balyasny and Millennium.
Both noncompetes I've been on you do not get benefits, you have to use COBRA. You receive base salary, no benefits.
At Bridgewater you succeed if you just fit into their culture, arguably the better place to be if so
At Point72, you just have to perform
Both of these places are better than IB if you fit their model
It comes down to:
1) Bridgey is known notoriously as a black box
2) P72 is a risky seat
More importantly, which once again this forum with just interns and college students interested in IB forgot to note, do you want macro or l/s equity?
You can’t compare the two seats at all.
You want equities you go p72, you’re interested in macro investing and not tactical RV style but proper macroeconomics with political analysis and all, then Bridgewater MIGHT be for you (culture dependent)
But because you’re trying to compare to IB you must be interested in equities, so forget Bridgewater and go for P72. If you can land a P72 seat, forget IB and go for it. The academy is very good and you are safe for 1st year for sure and then more likely to perform vs IB recruited analyst because you’ve been trained to invest and how to invest, compared to IB analyst that we’re trained to be bankers (which transfers to modeling BUT NOT NECESSARILY investing)
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