Comp for Investment Associate position at Big 4 HF

Title says it all but I wanted to see what my comp expectations should be for a L/S equity investment associate role at big 4 MM HF (P72, BAM, Citadel, Millenium).

For context, I have 6 YOE (4 years banking, 2 years PE) and currently a senior associate at LMM private equity fund ($500M - $1B). What should I expect for total comp including base and bonus and any sign-ons?

Thanks all

16 Comments
 

standard base is 125-175k. First year my guess is bonus would get communicated on a stricter basis - call it 75-100+% of base based on the relevance of your experience set. After that, bonus will all be performance based and base will be flat around that band. Would imagine there would be some paycut to making the jump. Bands are wide and only get wider

 

really? I would've expected more like base 175 + bonus 225 so like 400k total. And reminder this is not like the P72 academy first-year out of college type of program but more for experienced people but still not much public markets invetsing buyside experience. 

 

PE and IB experience isn't that relevant to MM investing. Your value add for your first year is really to model accurately and work hard (these skills are a commodity) and you won't really be expected to contribute ideas on day one. No reason to get that high of a base without much value add from your part.

 

Unless you negotiate a guarantee, which I have heard some ex-PE assocs do (granted they were MF/UMM), it's hard to ballpark it exactly.

Generalising a lot here, but from the platform's POV, in your first year, there's little marginal utility/value in you vs someone coming from those undergraduate programs. 

 

that's helpful data point. So presumably it wouldn't be crazy to negotiate for a higher comp than that if you have a PE experience as well?

 

A few years ago, I was negotiating 500K guaranteed coming out 1+1 for C / P72 / MLP

 

Thanks for the input. What is a 1+1? is that an academy program like P72 Academy? And what would be the title that you negotiated for? I'm just trying to figure out what is within a reasonable range if I have IB + PE experience. 

 

Titles are just Analyst/PM with some sort of combo depending on which firm you're at.

Citadel for example, has associates who are basically junior analysts anywhere else. If you're coming out of IB/PE you'll be a junior analyst/associate, i.e someone not running risk.

 

You can try and negotiate base but you’re very unlikely to get above 175k at any of the firms you mentioned. I made the jump from PE a few years ago and came in at 150k at a time when 125k was the standard. I negotiated a higher base when I went to a lower tier market neutral fund and frankly was happy to have a little more cash flow and security in exchange for a little less upside.

 

Any idea of the comp (base + Y1 guarantee) at a pod at BAM/MLP/P72 for someone with 3 years of experience (all at LO)?

In London

Is £125k+£150 possible?

 
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