Highest ever starting salary?


IBD is standard, 60K+10K, but what about outliers, I know one kid, whose getting 80K+ 80K(assured bonus), with the possibility of more if the HF performes. Damn.. I would hate on him but I know he is smart as hell, and as much as I hate to admit it, prolly deserves it. Anything else top that?

 

yeah i know this one kid at goldman who was an absolute rockstar, varsity tennis, extreme skiier, etc. hit it off big with the senior guys who knew he was shopping between lazard, morgan, greenhill and blackstone. The fucker got 70/30. They claimed the added 20 on relo was because his family is from uzbekistan.

 
Gommini:
yeah i know this one kid at goldman who was an absolute rockstar, varsity tennis, extreme skiier, etc. hit it off big with the senior guys who knew he was shopping between lazard, morgan, greenhill and blackstone. The fucker got 70/30. They claimed the added 20 on relo was because his family is from uzbekistan.

How was his ballroom dancing though?

-------------- Either you sling crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot
 

evercore offered 75k starting. gleacher also supposively offered more than 60k. those are the only two banks i've heard of that offered more than 60k.

hedge funds and prop trading firms are a different story - 75k + 15k sign-on seems pretty standard here. i do know one guy who is getting 85k base at a HF (his bonus will supposively be around 100% of his base).

 

Definitely have it good. I started as an unpaid intern and lived with my parents. After 6 mos, they gave me a $5k bonus and promoted me to...wait for it...$23k.

It's worked out very well.

Note: It occurred to me that I live in a very low cost of living city and if I were to compare it with NYC, it would be $51k. But $0 is $0, so you guys are lucky.

 

didnt some superstar at DE Shaw get a million dollars his second or third year there after developing a model that soon became heavily used by the company? i dunno if i heard about that here or somewhere else, but it's still impressive nonetheless

 

I knew kid who was put on an Itraxx trading desk the first year the product came out because they thought it would be a quiet place he couldn't screw up.. We know how popular that thing became, the kid made a mill in bonus, age 24.

 

No bonus is ever for sure.... it's always performance based. Remember that these jobs pay you based on your level of experience. If you're just a normal grad even from a top school, you have little to no actual experience that is valuable to a bank. Instead, you're hired based on your future potential and ability to learn quickly and to eventually be a valuable member of the team.

 

BS PE paid it's first year analysts $200K in 2003. A good friend of mine from Wharton worked for them back then for a year and then switched to GA.

No clue what FYAnalyst compensation is like now but $220K shouldn't be too far off.

 

I know some of you won't believe this, but it's true. A kid at Wharton (who's graduating in 3 years) got an offer from Citadel (not in new york) for $150K, plus tuition reimbursement for a master's degree program, plus bonus.

Of course, he turned them down to pursue a quant degree at Princeton next year.

 

There are MBAs at shops like some of the ones you mentioned who got pay packages of around $500K, so $200K for an analyst at an absurdly selective shops sounds very possible. Rare, but it happens.

 

Guys, I've been in the business for four years now. Worked at difference firms. Doing the PE thing now. Have interviewed at a lot of places....

Most of these comments appear to come from college students and half of them are bullsh*t.

"I heard of my sister's boyfriend's uncle's cousin who started at 500k salary. Or was that his bonus?....Or all in comp? I dunno, it was a lot."

 
daas:
i for a 100% fact know a 1st year analyst who left their gig at a BB and got 95k base and 100k bonus from Evercore.

confirmed by said person himself.

So what? 195k all-in for a second year analyst? Your comp jumps every year if you stay in investment banking.

 

at Citigroup a few years back who pulled a 100% bonus and walked with around $130 k his first year. I am inclined to believe it because I know the kid well, and he never boasts and is so modest, and he's rich to begin with, so has nothing to gain from lying really. Don't think that is exceptional to get a salary like that though.

 

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Buddy of mine is now a 2nd year M & A analyst at a top 5 BB, where he interneed his sophmore and junior summers. He cleared 160K total comp when all was said and done. Needless to say, that's very much the exception rather than the rule, and he's a rockstar to begin with, which is why the M&A group at a top 5 BB picked him up as a sophmore.

 
SpencerMakesBank:
El Toro is not alluding to anything. It is a common expression.

Now can someone please post a legitimate response?

Beerfest...

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 
SpencerMakesBank:
Masters of Professional Accountancy

As opposed to a Masters of Amateur Accountancy? I'm surprised that Texas calls it that. Most schools call it an MS in Accountancy.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

Shortstop for the Yankees...just get a place near the Street and you don't even have to get a college education to do it.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

If Citadel is a "revolving door" would it ruin your banking career if you were fired from there?

 
Best Response

I love how these hedge funds, or alternative investment institutions love to call themselves Citadel, Fortress, etc. Someone should hurry up and start a new fund called SuperMaxium Security. Yeah, I had a friend graduate and work at Citadel, the numbers listed above is pretty much what he told me. Not sure what he actually ended up getting in bonuses, but he's pretty ballin out in Chi-Town right now.

He mentions Citadel is notorious for churning and burning their analyst classes, but luckily he's still there and doing well with himself last time I talked. I believe Citadel like laid off a bunch of people in the last two years.

To SpencerMakesWhack, no having Citadel on your resume is a good thing. It's pretty prestigious and difficult to get in. If you make it past the first few years, you're golden. Even if you don't, you have it on your resume. The better question, how in the world do plan in to actually receiving an interview, and actually making it past that to an offer. I believe they hire really smart quant folks from schools like MIT, Cal Tech, CMU, etc.

Dude, the premise and phrasing of your question is whack. Entry level pay should rarely never be the most important factor in deciding your first job.

----------------------------------------------------------------- Hug It Out
 

So, pretty much what they're saying is if you want a (take with a grain of salt):

Hedge fund job: HS -> MIT quant god

Private Equity job: HS -> Wharton Finance god

BB IB: HS -> Target school (or Networking god)

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

Private Equity comment is not true unless you are talking about a mega fund. Rarely do PE funds do OC recruiting so landing a PE job is completely about networking. Being from a target or non target is irrelevant unless you are talking about the big boys. If you are willing to intern for free you can definetly make some connections at local PE shops that can still offer great experience.

 
HFFBALLfan123:
Private Equity comment is not true unless you are talking about a mega fund. Rarely do PE funds do OC recruiting so landing a PE job is completely about networking. Being from a target or non target is irrelevant unless you are talking about the big boys. If you are willing to intern for free you can definetly make some connections at local PE shops that can still offer great experience.

My buddy had a PE offer from a non-mega fund out of UG because they recruited on campus at UVA. Obviously the exception but it can happen.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

Forgive my noobishness, but what do y'all mean by networking? Talking to alumni? Interning? Making friends w/ bankers? lol

Oh and to Ari_Gold: I know, but it seems the typical path of Wall St.-ers is grind out a couple of years to get some work experience then get your MBA. So I might as well make the most money while getting that experience right?

 

And read WSO. All of your questions will be answered if you just read everything posted on here for ~1 month and read some old posts.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

I am just saying, most MM PE funds don't have an analyst position. Usually the bottom tier is associate, so if you are in the right place in the right time and can impress the right people, they can easily create an analyst position for you. Each experience is completely different and not like banking where you know exactly what to expect. I got extremely lucky than an X BB banker took over the fund and liked the IB structure and wanted an analyst so the VP could focus more time on closely monitoring our PF companies. That being said, outside of BB IB, each experience (hours, pay, type of work) will be unique but typically the best way in is through networking and pure luck...

 

Even if you go to lower BB, elite boutique, or MM i-banking, you should be looking at $130-$140K in your first year, ~$160K-$180K in your second, and close to $200K in your third, plus or minus $20K on all of these depending on the firm and its propensity to pay nice bonuses.

And no, you don't need to go to Goldman to get paid like this (though BB and elite boutiques pay the most generally). This is normal for even MMs as they have to keep on attracting decent talent.

On a per-hour basis, though, this isn't much, especially in your first year where you have to work 90 hours / week consistently. But as a total comp it's not easy to beat.

Look at HFs like Citadel if you're math oriented (hence the focus on places like MIT). If you're not math oriented, corporate finance i-banking will do.

 

you'd be surprised, most of the highest compensated people do not get comped via base salary mostly. it's equity, it's dividends from shares they own, or it's carry. for example, David Cote (CEO Honeywell) has a base of 1.8mm but his 2013 comp was north of 25mm. here's a good starting point, comb through the 14-A's of the dow 30 companies, you'll get a sense of what executive comp looks like.

but this question was kinda stupid, why do you care? you sound like you're in college, worry about getting good grades, getting internships, and working your way up. the rest will come.

 

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