| Corporate Action Accountant/Pricing Analyst |
First off, StateStreet is a phenomenal company. They have an
unbelievable technology platform and they are very, very good at
what they do. Having said that, on a personal note, it was not a very
good place to be at all. It all depends on your character. I like being
in situations that are constantly changing, where you have to think
on your feet, where you are exposed to strategy/business models at
work. The work you do as an investment accountant or corporate
actions accountant is definitely NOT in that category of work. While
being a corporate actions accountant is marginally more exciting
than being an investment accountant, it was still-more often than
not-very tedious work. The problem is in the fact that our work was
seldom very challenging due to their being little activity in the market
and there being far too many of us in the office. Basically, State
Street had over-hired in montreal, but could not afford to lay anyone
off as when the market picks up the workload goes up significantly
and it's too risky for them to be caught with their pants down-so to
speak. The people were very, very nice at the office, and from what I
can tell across the company. No complaints there-quite
proffesional and very competent, but there was no room for
advancement, there were too many middle managers and I worked
with some stellar supervisors, who effectively were more qualified
than their own managers-but who had no chance to move up, at
least not in the near or foreseeable future. As a Corporate Actions
accountant you basically monitor a series of reports that are
internally generated and scour them for any corporate actions that
are to occur on a client or statestreet's own funds that day. (A
corporate action would be a stock-split, an acquisition, a merger, a
dividend, a tender offer, etc, etc-basically any "synthetic" alteration to
equity) Anyway, so you find them (you cannot afford to miss any-lots
of double-checking and verification obviously goes in) and then you
confirm the actions via research on Bloomberg or Reuters or other
sources. Once this is done you need to figure out how to reflect the
action on a fund. So you determine the appropriate accounting for it
and send instructions to the investment accountants who go on
and reflect the action correctly so that the fund can be properly
pricied and a NAV (Net Asset Value) can be generated. Now, when
there's a lot of corporate actions it's exciting work. Fast paced, you
have to think, and it can be different every day. HOWEVER, be
warned...there were days, and sometimes even WEEKS where we
would get one, maybe two actions, and not even interesting
ones-per day! (a busy day would be 10-12 actions occuring on a
multitude of funds) As for Pricing, this would be done in the
afternoon, and I can't go too into this, as I think it's confidential
(better safe than sorry). In any case, pricing is really information
management. You oversee the process by which StateStreet's
(admittedly very, very good) software calculates a NAV. This takes a
few hours, is pretty much the same every single day (except for
once in a blue moon when you have to manually price some thinly
traded stock or some exotic bond)-but this is seriously
mind-numbing after about 3-4 months. In effect it's a testament to
just how good StateStreet is-other firms have MUCH more involved
processes to deliver NAV's. Granted that makes it better for a
young employee who wants to learn, but it's definitely worse for the
company's bottom line-think efficiency.
So, it all depends what you want. Take this seriously, because I
didn't know that and I ended up at a great company-but in a really,
really wrong job for me. I was hoping to get into banking-but was
we all know the market tanked in 2001-2002, so I took what I could.
My real hope, was, and is, to work in New York-presently I'm back in
school pursuing the CA (CDN equivalent of CPA). As for
StateStreet-if you like a secure job with a decent and very fair (not
spectacular) pay, a job that has good benefits, comparatively easy
hours ( i worked from 8AM to 6PM-pretty standard for our
group-investment accountants worked 9AM to about 630PM), and
that has a good career aspect in terms of being able to stay there
for 5-10-15 years, than great. It's an awesome place for you.
However, if you want to get on a steep learning curve, be
challenged, pushed, and generally be working iwth highly
motivated, uber-intelligent people, than I think StateStreet is about
the last place you want to be (unless you want to go to
SSGM-StateStreet Global Markets-those guys are freaking
amazing-those are state street's traders-not part of the bank, a
seperate division, and usually only hire people with 10 years +
experience of trading-but that was just FYI). As for dress code, it's
business casual. Jeans on friday. Except when clients come in,
then it's all suits. So hopefully that helps. My one word of advice,
don't get caught up in the glamour of a firm, make sure you know
who you are, and whether that meshes with how the work/people
are. My biggest regret is that my boss didn't see that when he hired
me. I was honest in my interviews, my CV is pretty obvious in terms
of indicating that I'm a go-getter, and yet they didn't pick up on that.
What they want is people that can just do the job, aren't excited by
taking initiatives, people that are willing to slowly build a base. Adn
that's fine, but it wasn't for me, maybe it'll be for you?
|
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