Any info on Elliott?

Anyone know anything about them? Few questions below

  1. Are they mostly an activist shop or do they also still dabble in distressed? Do they have specific analysts for the public/private activist stuff and distressed or do analysts do a bit of everything? 

  2. Anyone know if they take summer analysts? Feel like I've seen a few on linkedin, and maybe the exceptional intern gets a FT offer i don't know.

  3. Anyone have data on comp? Ppl on this forum love Elliott so I assume analysts must be making 7 figures and for PMs, god knows how much. Elliott had a $1bn+ position in Twitter, and I'm pretty sure they more than 2x their money in that over the past year, they're out now. I'm sure the guy who put on that position got paid 8 figures. 

Here are my thoughts on one particular subject: returns/performance. They may only put up like 12%, but Elliott has created an extremely unique, attractive, uncorrelated product for its LPs. They got to $40bn+ for a reason. 

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Comments (66)

  • Principal in HF - Event
Apr 18, 2021 - 12:48am

They remain one of the most prominent distressed investors in the market. However, the nature of the asset classes means it's far, far easier to deploy capital into public equities than into distressed, which is basically illiquid by comparison. Given their AUM, they need to deploy hundreds of millions if not often  a billion+ for a real position and in recent years there have only been a small number of distressed situations where that opportunity even exists. So that fact alone means they'll almost always have more money in equities than credit.  That said, the distressed investments they make usually have a heavy activist angle to them so it's not a totally different strategy and there are PMs/analysts at Elliott that will work on both. 

As for the success of Twitter or any individual trade, it's hard to say from the outside. They run a quasi market neutral strategy where they hedge market risk, which is partly why their returns appear so low since they don't run a crazy amount of leverage. 

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Apr 18, 2021 - 9:56am

I think it's more so that there are structural limitations when ur a $40bn+ player in distressed- hard to put meaningful $ to work when most bankruptcies are middle market situations. They need $1bn+ positions to move the needle, and in distressed there are only so many situations where you can do that. As a result, they kinda need to focus on bigger stuff like PG&E and I guess Windstream and in the past sovereign stuff (and Lehman too...) where they can put a lot of money to work. I'm in highschool but I do remember all the fights they had with Argentina, senior/junior creditors vs Apollo in caesars, and Elliott vs Aurelius in Windstream. So they're definitely active in corporate and sovereign distressed, but I think it's moreso the fact that it's extremely hard to run a distressed only platform when your $10bn+ in AUM, hence Elliott's emphasis on equity activism in recent years.

  • Investment Analyst in HF - EquityHedge
Apr 18, 2021 - 12:17pm

I didnt even know what a hedge fund was in HS and I graduated undergrad fairly recently, crazy how competitive the industry is getting and how early people are getting into investing... Good for u tho, remember to enjoy HS and college

Apr 18, 2021 - 12:52pm

Appreciate the compliments fellas. If you couldn't already tell, I'm pretty passionate about investing. It would be my dream to work at a place like Elliott some day, Singer is a legend. Gonna be heading off to a target in the fall, and not to hijack this thread, but do you guys have any tips for getting to an HF as soon as possible, perhaps out of undergrad? I know 2 years BB/EB and then MF PE is the standard track to a shop like Elliott, but have you guys heard of any of these top activist or tiger cub HFs taking summer interns? I suppose if you land an internship at one of them and manage to impress your boss, they would offer you a FT gig. Any tips for this if you were in my shoes?

  • Analyst 1 in IB - Ind
Apr 18, 2021 - 2:11pm

Was in your shoes a few years ago so will provide the best advice I can from my experience and from the experiences of my friends who are at HFs. I ended up choosing an industry boutique IB over a HF because I wasn't set on HFs but here is my advice. 
1. Basics- maintain a good GPA, get into the good investment clubs, show that you are smart and very interested in investing

2. Network- HF world is a very small world and most managers know each other. Thus it is important to network as much as possible because even if one fund isn't looking for an intern or analyst, people at the fund may know of a different fund that is. Hedge funds are generally very discreet about hiring so the more people you know, the better. 
3. Become an expert- Whether it be distressed, commodities, FI, or a specific industry niche within the equities world, become an expert on something. Be so confident in your opinions and in your knowledge that you are able to have candid discussions about the market of that entity with industry professionals. 
4.  Read- Read WSJ, WSO, The Atlantic, FT, or anything else that will provide insight into fund activity and general industry activity. If a new fund launches in the area that you're interested in, you should already know that they were planning to launch months ago and what their specific angle is. 
5. Thesis- To top off all of the other steps, it is important to have a thesis. Have a thesis on where the industry you're interested in is going. Have a thesis on potential investments to make. Have a thesis on what type of funds are going to succeed in the next 3, 5, and 10 years in the area you want to cover. 

It is tough to get HF looks out of undergrad but it's definitely doable, especially at a target. Most important thing is that you follow these steps and stay persistent over the next few years. There will be times where your options look bleak but it is of utmost importance to stay focused even during those times. Good luck. 

  • Investment Analyst in HF - EquityHedge
Apr 18, 2021 - 2:29pm

My advice is dont listen to all you hear on this forum, its very inaccurate for the most part. For example, you are lumping in activists and tiger cubs despite them having a completely different investment process, you probably heard they are similar from WSO when they are not for the most part.

It sounds like you want to work at these places cause its the "top job" (not because of their investment process, not judging this just observing) but I dont think the activists are going to be as good seats in the future. you are 5+ years out from the job market and activist risk adjusted returns have been very bad over the last 5-10 years so I would expect large fee compression by the time you enter the industry. Already seeing it in a lot of these funds.

Id say shoot for more of like a Holocene/Melvin type single manager (Citadel and SAC spin Out). I think this is where SM HFs are going in terms of what allocators want. They want tight risk parameters and wont pay 2 and 20 for funds that are 40% net long like they used to. Some of the tiger cubs are also great seats, I think these funds that are good stock/sector pickers have a place in the future.

A good example of the forward outlook is that Ben Jacobs who was a very senior PM from Viking raised less than 1B when he launched anomaly when Brandon Haley raised 1.5B scaling to 7.5B when launching Holocene after leaving Citadel.

Also dont write off the MMHF seats (many hire out of undergrad), they are becoming increasingly more attractive as their returns are frankly way better than all of the SMs. I agree that rn the SM seats at activists and large cubs are better rn, but will they be in 10 years when you will have most of your career earnings? I dont think so... could be wrong

For getting into these places network like crazy, connections matter more in HFs than PE. Also you want to show a near unhealthy interest in the markets if u want to go to one out of undergrad. They need to know you dont need hand holding and already have the skills you normally learn in banking, be professional/financial modeling/understanding business/etc.

  • Associate 2 in PE - Other
Apr 18, 2021 - 9:52pm

I think your best use of time will be to learn more about things that actually interest you from a "what do I want to do with my life POV". You are clearly intelligent and know more about the lay of the land for the HF world than most college seniors, so it'd be a waste of your time to worry about the nuance between Elliott, Balyasny, Tudor, etc. It also doesn't sound like it would take you too long to work through the Rosenbaum & Pearl textbook (if you already haven't) and pick up the basics of finance including modeling and LBO theory / mechanics. This will leave you with almost the entirety of your college career to dip your toes into different areas of finance and see what you like best. Try out long-term, fundamental value investing types focused on public markets. Try out operationally focused, small cap PE types. Don't just worry about distressed credit, explore the world of rates and currencies too. Did you know there are billions of dollars raised, and several funds only dedicated, to financing music royalties, ticket presales, and the IP associated with sports athletes? Go check that shit out and see if you like it. Can't forget about commodities either. My point is that there are so, so many different things finance touches and a lot of industry folks don't even know about some of them. You have the benefit of being ahead of the curve compared to your peers, embrace that advantage by exploring different avenues. I promise, promise, promise that spending a summer doing something "unrelated" to vanilla IB or PE won't put you at a disadvantage to get the main junior internship or FT spot at a top bank or MF PE analyst program.  

  • Incoming Analyst in IB-M&A
Apr 19, 2021 - 8:54am

Those motherfuckers took over AC Milan and are one of the driving forces in the shit new "Super League" in soccer/football. For fucks sake man stay the fuck out of the beautiful game.

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