Living where the action isn't.

[york]

I'm curious if anyone has any information/wisdom they could pass along about living and working in a nontraditional finance city (i.e. Halifax NS). Do you have to settle for a firm or company who's investment philosophy is "close enough"? Do you start your own firm and hope that you can raise the required capital (btw I'm 30, so not a long track record behind me)? Or are there other options I am missing? Feel free to impart any other bits of information/wisdom on to me and any other 30 year-olds who might see this.

[JayGatsby]

Really depends what you want to do. If you want to do public markets investing or private equity location really doesn't matter for the business itself, so you're really looking for an established team with a strategy you find interesting (and that also finds you interesting). If you want to do large-cap sell-side investment banking your options will be more limited.

 

One thought is to check around for family offices. The # of formal family offices has been growing rapidly and they create really interesting opportunities in nontraditional cities. Like these folks: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/sobeys-and-mccains-join-forces-to-invest-in-boosting-canadian-businesses/article534342/

 

Feel free to shoot me a PM if you have more specific questions. I'm 30 as well... did IB, PE, corp fin and am now in Denver doing some things on my own that haven't succeeded or failed yet.