Singapore hedge funds training 16-year-old interns to manage billionaires' wealth

Hedge funds in Singapore are training interns as young as 16 years old in order to nurture local talent as a shortage of qualified professionals is starting to bite, according to Bloomberg.

Political troubles in Hong Kong and financial incentives by the government is drawing more hedge funds to Singapore leading to a surge in hedge fund asset under management in the country more than doubling in 2020 from 2016.

As multi-billion dollar funds and private equity firms are moving to the city-state, the Singapore government is incentivising local hiring instead of hiring expatriates in these firms by launching training subsidies that help pay for asset management courses. It aims to give citizens global experience by covering as much as S$100,000 ($75,000) in costs when financial institutions send selected staff for overseas postings, according to the report.

A high schooler, Yi Ke Cao worked for two weeks at Modular Asset Management where she crunched data in spreadsheets, interacted with veterans and watched nerve-wracking meetings where money managers defended their investment ideas from peers.

“I was a bit terrified, I didn’t know how to react to them speaking to me and I didn’t know how to hold a conversation but they were welcoming,” Cao, now 17 told Bloomberg, of her first day in the office, having beaten 10 classmates to land the role. “I’m definitely more likely to consider it now.”

CEO of Quantedge Capital, Suhaimi Zainul-Abidin, told Bloomberg that most new hires will likely come directly from internships. During a recent process, it shortlisted from 300CVs. 30 sets of tests and interviews before the 10 survivors were given five-week internships. Of these, just three secured a job offer.

Abidin said Singapore once produced “graduates who’d have the ability to join banks and big financial institutions because those were the names we were trying to draw into Singapore. Today the nature of the job has changed."