Director in Corp Dev M&A for Sponsor PortCo
Hey all,
A recruiter reached out to me about a corp dev M&A role with Director title. It would be for a fairly acquisitive portco of a UMM PE, targeting $5-$10m ebitda targets primarily. It would repeat directly to the CEO which sounds sweet. Do you all happen to know more about typical working style, structure, day to day, and comp for this type of role?
I looked at a couple comp threads and saw Director might be anywhere from $175-225k base with 300-450k all in based on how much bonus and equity you get.
I’m tempted but I think it isn’t that much of a boon from a work life balance perspective given it sounds like 55-70 hours a week from other threads.
Thanks in advance and appreciate any thoughts.
Bump
What does bonus and equity structure look like in these roles?
It is so dependent on the specific company. Corp dev roles are so varied, especially at more senior levels. This is because every company is built differently. What may be on the corp dev team in terms of analysis at one company may be handled by accounting at another company or it may be outsourced at a third.
They may say they are acquisitive, or that they are planning to be, but you need to confirm that. Look at the past 5 years. If you don’t see acceptable deal flow it isn’t likely to just start now no matter what the PE owner or the company says. Although, with that being said, if you do report to the CEO directly that is a positive sign
How does someone see how acquisitive a company has been within the last 5 years?
If it's a sponsor owned company there might be press releases that can be found online with some research. CapIQ and other sources of this nature might also have it in the M&A timeline but the reliability of this data can vary greatly.
OP, no one can answer your question because as someone else said, it all depends on what the CEO and the PEG is like. You could be working sub-40-hour work weeks or 80-hour work weeks. Here is what I would...Get details on the day-to-day involvement of the PEG. Higher interaction with the PEG generally means longer work hours. Same goes for PEGs that do "value add" or "management improvement" or whatever their branded lingo is. These PEGs will work you. Get details on the acquisition approval process and get their thoughts on delegation of authority. The more PE signoff you need, the more hours you will work. You want to be at a place where you might give weekly updates to the PEG, but the only real approval you or the CEO needs is right before signing the LOI. Do not let the size of these transactions fool you. $1M EBITDA transactions are (in my opinion) much more difficult that $1B transactions. You not only have less support (i.e., no one is going to hire a bank or a top 15 law firm to assist you), but the business itself will probably be a bit of a mess. Lower transaction values = more work, at least in my experience. As far as your equity, make sure you clarify at what level of the cap structure it is. The ideal would be HoldCo equity so that you get equity in each additional acquisition, but this is not my area of expertise, so think about having an attorney read through your contract.
Finally, you need to separate base, bonus, and equity. Equity is generally worthless until the time of sale, so it's not like options at Meta...you can't just include some meaningless number in your total. $175K-$225K sounds about right for this role. You might be able to get that a tiny bit higher because while your title is "director", if you're reporting to the CEO, you're really functioning as a VP.
I have been in two corp dev roles at PEG PortCos (one at manager level, and now one at director level). Both have been 40-50 hour work weeks and fairly laid back, but I also was with PEGs that let our CEO manage the business without getting too involved. I love the PEG PortCo space, but you really have to do your homework as every firm is different.
Perferendis voluptatum saepe quia autem eaque harum. Repellat suscipit laborum hic.
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