Investment consulting analyst salary

Yeah the comp package I was offered was basically equivalent to what someone two years out of college with minimal experience would make in an accounting firm.
 
iheartiheartmath Wrote:
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> Yeah the comp package I was offered was basically
> equivalent to what someone two years out of
> college with minimal experience would make in an
> accounting firm.
Agreed. I have two friends working in BO roles at a custodian who make about 2.5 times more than me. They don’t have the most exciting jobs but like what they do and are pretty good at it. All three of us have actuarial backgrounds and worked together as actuarial analysts at one point in time.
I had the option of going for the same BO role but chose not to. We were on similar salary back then and now they make a hell lot more. But even for that much more money, I am not sure if I would want to work at a custodian.
They make good money, have 9-5 jobs, other than few days every month end when they sleep at work. But even they admit that what they do can be very boring. They are paid well because they have great programming skills coupled with their finance knowledge.
 
How do the consulting firms view related experience - 6 years in equities research for middle market IBs? Plus an MS in Finance? I’m making a career change so I’m looking at both mid- and entry-level type roles in investment consulting to gain experience; however, what sort of salary do you think I could command with that experience, given that it is only indirectly related to the consulting industry. I guess I do have a lot of buyside contacts, which is a strong plus. Also, I’m in a secondary/tertiary market, with quite a few mid-size (think top 5-15ish size by assets under advisory) companies either based here or hold offices here.
 
I know people at top consulting firms like Hewitt and Enis Knupp and it’s surprising how little they make. I know an analyst who controls $6 billion in assets and only makes $45k a year. It’s not hard to pick managers and it’s not highly valued. Many consultants try to make the jump over to the investment side because that’s the only place you make any money.
 
They are the distributors of the investment management world. Very tight margins. I would expect more than $45K with a little exp, though.
 
The thing with consultants is that they are never held accountable for their advice, I think. They do not produce a track record. Because their is little business risk from a performance standpoint (it’s all about the sales guys’ relationships), you can let pretty much anybody pick managers.
I would actually say that it is not easy to pick managers. I have never seen a study showing an above average success rate in picking managers. My hunch is because they often underperform, so they do not want to publish a study like that.
 
I have often wondered if you are so good at picking managers why are you not a manager? i.e. if you have the knowledge and insight to decide whether a manager can generate alpha, no way you cant do it yourself. Its not like teaching where you are in it for the cause. The hours these guys work are comparable to IBs but the money they make is 1/1000 times.
 
You definitely make more than $45k if you are good, but it’s more about whether you have a client base or not. If you are just a behind the scenes analyst, you will never make much. Eureka is absolutely right about not being held accountable for a track record. Someone at Enis Knupp told me that they measure value-added in house but don’t publish it because it’s not pretty!
 
needhelp Wrote:
——————————————————-
> I have often wondered if you are so good at
> picking managers why are you not a manager? i.e.
> if you have the knowledge and insight to decide
> whether a manager can generate alpha, no way you
> cant do it yourself. Its not like teaching where
> you are in it for the cause. The hours these guys
> work are comparable to IBs but the money they make
> is 1/1000 times.
Huh? Consultants don’t work hours like bankers. Plus, picking a good manager means nothing about whether you could do it yourself. I can criticize whether a music album is any good but that doesn’t mean I can play the guitar.
 
needhelp Wrote:
——————————————————-
> I have often wondered if you are so good at
> picking managers why are you not a manager? i.e.
> if you have the knowledge and insight to decide
> whether a manager can generate alpha, no way you
> cant do it yourself. Its not like teaching where
> you are in it for the cause. The hours these guys
> work are comparable to IBs but the money they make
> is 1/1000 times.
I don’t know about inv consulting, but in FoF we have managers that used to run their own funds and decided to go to a FoF because either they prefer not getting phone calls at 2 am (one person who ran an international portfolio cited this), their old fund blew up or some extraneous reason (maybe 10% of the time). I would say it is usually the quality of life/stress issue I cited first that is most often given.
Consultants have no skin in the game, it’s all marketing spin. I do not think they are waking up in the middle of the night with somebody calling about the Hang Seng, though. Hours are undoubtably better than straight investment management, FoF, HF, PE or long only…possibly endowment/foundation work could be more chill.
 
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