March 29, 2003
MBAs Explore
Outlook for Hedge Funds at Inaugural Symposium
Keynote speaker Lindsey describes encouraging
prospects for MBAs
|
|||||||
Austin – In a sign of the financial times, MBA students traveled to Austin, Texas from across the country this week to network with professionals from the hedge fund industry at the inaugural Texas MBA Hedge Fund Symposium.
The event, held Friday, March 28, 2003, at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, attracted students from Duke, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and other top-ranked business programs in the U.S. and Canada. Industry professionals from Chicago, New York, Houston and Dallas were in attendance representing Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney, Bank of America, Bear Stearns Securities and other key players in the securities exchange business.
Over the last two years, as financial services firms have laid off analysts and scaled back recruiting efforts for new hires, MBAs seeking an edge in the job market have increasingly turned to one of finance's more secretive enclaves - hedge funds.
The message for MBAs on Friday from keynote speaker Dr. Richard Lindsey, president of Bear Stearns Securities Corporation, was encouraging: the significance of hedge funds is on the rise, he said, and greater prospects are on the horizon for MBA graduates seeking the experience necessary to enter the industry and its affiliated service sectors.
Approximately 100 students and securities exchange professionals gathered for the one-day event to discuss current trends in this rapidly growing industry segment.
In his comments, Lindsey presented an overview of the state of the securities exchange industry and the role that hedge funds play in the market.
"There are $650 billion roughly, world-wide, in the hedge fund industry," Lindsey said. "In the United States, in the traditional institutional investor market, there is $20 trillion of investments. So the hedge fund industry itself is a relatively small percentage of that overall investment portfolio on the street."
But the importance of hedge funds to the securities exchange industry is increasing. Lindsey pointed out that hedge fund revenues to the street are somewhere around $4-5 billion. "Hedge funds represent somewhere between 10-15 percent of the total revenues for the street. So it is a substantial, sizable portion of revenues and a growing portion of revenues for most houses," Lindsey said.
He also offered advice to those seeking to enter the industry. "People in hedge funds normally have a depth of experience," Lindsey said. While it might be difficult to enter hedge funds directly upon graduation, he said, "Within the securities firm there are tremendous opportunities to work with hedge funds, and tremendous opportunities to interact with them and become much closer to them as time goes by, maybe with the opportunity of crossing that line."
The event was organized by University of Texas McCombs MBA students, who founded the Texas MBA Hedge Fund Organization in September 2002 to help MBAs gain greater exposure to the sophisticated asset management strategies of hedge funds. Providing direct interaction between MBAs and top industry professionals, the organization is one of the first in the country to offer MBAs more direct access to the secretive enclaves of the hedge fund business.
The format included both presentations and panel discussions to give audience members an opportunity for interaction with presenters.
In a time when employment in the securities exchange industry is down, the message for the MBA students was encouraging. Money flowing into hedge funds has grown substantially and that is expected to create opportunities in the future.
Another key message: the hedge fund industry is based on personal relationships and networking. The Texas MBA Hedge Fund Symposium provided an opportunity to develop these relationships and network, which is one reason why more than a dozen representatives from regional companies attended the event as well.
For more information visit the Texas MBA Hedge Fund Organization or email event organizer Holly Goodrich.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
