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Career Resources
Where the CS ppl at
Was this from a lawsuit or what?
No salary + bonus.
Half a million rupees maybe
Take a moment and really think about if you believe this actually happened or not.
IB analyst? No way unless there's something sketch like hush money involved.
No shot
$500k over three years as an analyst. Sounds about right.
MD's in sellside research are often referred to as analysts by those in the research industry and they often clear 500k, are you sure that's not what you read/heard?
Hong Kong dollars?
It was an M&A analyst. Everyone is talking about it in CS. Might actually be true
Half a mil Japanese yen
$300k I can see -- $500k for a 2nd yr analyst is highly unlikely but not technically impossible in the following scenario:
1) kid is an absolute rockstar. He/she gets on the desk, and is running the entire process out of the gate
2) maybe they brought in a big deal and is already sourcing with their relationships so they brought in $1mm in fees and/or
3) maybe this was the only way CS could hold onto him/her since he/she had multiple megafund PE offers + other options?
If this M&A analyst sees this post and wants to confirm it anonymously with me, just shoot me a PM or email and I will confirm it to the WSO community so that everyone can give you a big congrats...
Only Scenario #2 is plausible. Scenario #1 and Scenario #3 would never result in $500k total comp for an IB analyst, because it causes a lot of internal issues when having such an outlier.
Patrick,
The only way that kind of salary works is in scenario 2. While I think that scenario one is plausible, it's not 500K/Year plausible, let alone 300K/Year. As far as scenario 3 is concerned, that kind of pay raise might set the expectations for other analysts in that position at CS and artificially raise comp as a result.
The thing with scenario 2 is that they need to have a pipeline of deals in the works or have brought in enough revenue to justify that kind of salary. Bringing in $1MM in fees just seems too low to justify that kind of payout. Depending on the fee scale, we're talking between 45MM and 100MM for the deal size. That just seems unusual. Just thinking about it from a brokerage commission perspective, becase it's the easiest way to look at the justified cost. Now, don't quote me on this for M&A transaction splits, but on the brokerage side, most firms fee schedule reflects the production level of the employee. Splits range anywhere form 77%/23% to as high as 48%42%. If this is their first deal, getting a 50/50% seems way out of the ordinary. I'd argue that the split is closer to 77%/23%, so if they earn $500K/Year, they have to be generating ~4.5MM in fees (against ~450MM in total deal size) to justify that salary. However, I'm sure that this offer has to be contingent on their continued generation of new business as well. There is just way too much variability here to make me believe that it's true. And this is also before any other fees that may be taken out of the earnings. So that number could easily double. If this is a rockstar analyst whos doing that, I'd believe it in a heartbeat. But, I'm skeptical.
Now, if this was an MD in Equity Research, where the Analyst title is common, I'd believe that in a heartbeat.
Based on what I know, CS has some sort of program where analysts/associates can earn some kind of credit towards deal revenues even if they don't actually bring it in themselves. Its meant to rewards the one to initially find the company/generate some type of idea that leads to a successful pitch.
Not sure on the specifics as it was explained pretty briefly by someone I knew who had summered there junior year. Seemed like even they were kind of confused by it, but it's a potential explanation for why one individual's comp might have been so high.
I bet his mommy or daddy is a CEO somewhere and he promised them huge deal flow at the least.
I’d say #2 is also highly implausible. Even a $10mm fee would get him a career-track early promotion and highest bonus bucket at best, but no way above $300k, especially at a large and structured company like CS.
As my mentor once told me... 90% of comps you hear from finance people are probably exaggerated.
For #1 how does a person prove himself/herself to be that competent at that junior of a level? Doesn't make sense given industry standards. What do you say while negotiating? I can't imagine anything but that person sounding very obnoxious, which wouldn't get him/her very good points on personality.
Yeah if the kid helped source a deal I could see it happening.
His MD got drunk and hit on him... ergo, the $500k...
sounds more like a her scenario tbh.. but ok
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