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Asset Management vs Investment banking

Can anyone who has any experience in these two fields give more information about pursuing a career in it? I am very conflicted about which one to choose. For example:
- what are the key differences?
-what are the different skills required for IB and AM?
- which one has a higher salary ( short term and long term)?
- which one is perceived to be more challenging, high pressured, long hours and more "prestigious"?
- which one is more competitive to get into in general?
For this post I will asssume that you are part of the investment team in AM (minority of roles yet the most selective), not in a funds/sales roles. For IB I'll assume that you are talking about IBD-M&A/Coverage.
Differences:
A lot of them, hours, sizes of teams, intensity, stress, pay, are all higher in IB.


Skills:
IB: Multitasking, sucking up bull****, managing confliciting deadlines, valuations, powerpoint, industry research, sleeping 4 hours per night, working in a team (read being ****ed by your MD).
AM: deep diving into a sector and understanding all the line items dynamics to the unit economics, valuation

Pay:
IB wins in most if not all cases unless you become a hot shot managing $Bn for your clients

IB is surely more challenging, pressured and has longer hours, but in AM people can track your performance more easily - ie do you make your loose money? I won't address the prestige bit as it's just useless. I don't think anyone working in AM would survive more than a month in IB, and loads of IB folks would get bored in AM.

Both are very competitive, would say AM investing roles is harder to get into.
Reply 2
Original post by xtrembob
For this post I will asssume that you are part of the investment team in AM (minority of roles yet the most selective), not in a funds/sales roles. For IB I'll assume that you are talking about IBD-M&A/Coverage.
Differences:
A lot of them, hours, sizes of teams, intensity, stress, pay, are all higher in IB.


Skills:
IB: Multitasking, sucking up bull****, managing confliciting deadlines, valuations, powerpoint, industry research, sleeping 4 hours per night, working in a team (read being ****ed by your MD).
AM: deep diving into a sector and understanding all the line items dynamics to the unit economics, valuation

Pay:
IB wins in most if not all cases unless you become a hot shot managing $Bn for your clients

IB is surely more challenging, pressured and has longer hours, but in AM people can track your performance more easily - ie do you make your loose money? I won't address the prestige bit as it's just useless. I don't think anyone working in AM would survive more than a month in IB, and loads of IB folks would get bored in AM.

Both are very competitive, would say AM investing roles is harder to get into.

thank you for all the info! Do you work in IB/AM sector or know someone who does or have done a lot of research?

IB sounds awfuI, idk how anyone can cope with the insane amount of workload, stress and pressure for long periods of time. What the point of having all that money if you can't even enjoy it? What are the hours like in AM? Is the difference in salary between IB and AM huge?
Original post by phoenix4
thank you for all the info! Do you work in IB/AM sector or know someone who does or have done a lot of research?

IB sounds awfuI, idk how anyone can cope with the insane amount of workload, stress and pressure for long periods of time. What the point of having all that money if you can't even enjoy it? What are the hours like in AM? Is the difference in salary between IB and AM huge?

I know people in both and work in one.

Hours in AM are usually 10-12hours days from what I hear with no weekend work. Salary will be 10-40% lower, bonuses 30-70% lower. But if you adjust for post tax and hours worked, you're basically at the same hourly pay.

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