The ex-Citadel and Goldman Sachs guy offering graduates an alternative route to hedge fund jobs
When Mark Pacitti left the UK's Newcastle University, he took a fairly formulaic route into finance. Pacitti went to Goldman Sachs and then he went to hedge fund Citadel. Now he's doing something different.
Pacitti runs Woozle Research, a primary research platform which helps hedge funds gain expert insights into sectors they're investing in. Woozle has been in existence for a decade and now employs around 30 people split between Glasgow and London. Woozle is hiring at least 10 more people, says Pacitti. Graduates with hedge fund aspirations may have reason to apply.
"A lot of people come to us with the goal of wanting to work on the sellside or the buyside," says Pacitti (referring to banks and funds). "They take the CFA exams, which we pay for and then they often join a sellside seat as an equities analyst or go on to work for a fund."
Pacitti's people are not analysing stocks or investing capital. They are talking to people.
"Hedge funds will give us a 15 minute brief and tell us which themes they are looking at and which experts they are seeking insights from," says Pacitti. "We have a team that designs a questionnaire, interviews experts, delivers the transcripts and provides the survey data directly on the platform." For example, he says, the might speak to senior procurement people about how they're using AI software. Other places do this too (GLG Insights), but Pacitti says Woozle is cheaper.
Despite being cheaper, Pacitti says his people are paid anything from £38k to £55k, plus a bonus of between 10% and 40% based on a profit sharing plan. "They don’t need niche industry knowledge," he elaborates. "But they do need to understand business and economics."
They also need to able to persuade people to talk to them. Woozle's interviewees are paid around £200 for an hour, but they still need encouragement to talk about things. "You need to be a bit outgoing and able to make people open up on the phone," Pacitti says. This is where hedge fund analysts can be lacking - they are are good with numbers, but less adept at chatting, Pacitti suggests.
The ability to elicit facts from human beings is not one of AI's strengths, so Pacitti's people may end up safer than Citadel's PhDs. Pacitti says "a lot" of people apply for his jobs, but presumably his acceptance rate is above the circa 0.5% at Citadel in recent years.
LinkedIn confirms that some of Pacitti's previous employees have converted their time with him into jobs elsewhere. One is now a fundamental research analyst at Point72. Another is in leveraged finance at Jefferies. One is an equity researcher at Redburn/Rothschild. It's a training program of sorts. "We train them up. It works for us," declares Pacitti.
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