I have a question about bonus distribution for IB analysts. As I understand it, there are generally 3 buckets of bonuses, and 70-80% of analysts fall into the middle bucket, with a few getting top bucket and a few getting lower bucket. My question if this is true across all groups within IBD, or if bonuses are based on revenue. For instance, does a middle-range analyst in industrials get the same bonus as a middle-range analyst in, say, health care, if industrials is the cash cow of the bank and brings in 5 times as much revenue? I know at the upper levels you get paid based on what you bring in, but it would seem a bit unfair to do this at the analyst level since you're basically doing what you are told.
And, if anyone knows, is the answer the same in capital markets groups? For instance, for the past few years a group like CDOs has been bringing in a lot more revenue that a group that does plain vanilla bonds - and conversely, this year the CDOs group has probably done horribly while the vanilla bonds group is bringing in the same amount of revenue. Will the analyst bonuses be the same between these two groups, or will a CDOs analyst have gotten an outsized bonus the last few years and be screwed this year?
