IBD Bonuses on Offer Letter

They say something to the effect of "you may receive a discretionary award based on blah blah blah." They're not going to chain themselves to a certain % in a contract just in case you happen to suck or the market reverses. That offer paper is airtight.

You're welcome, and in my experience the big guys (BB / EB) typically have a minimum first year bonus, but it's not usually disclosed on the offer letter. Like I said, it's usually tentatively decided by your bucket, your group's performance (sometimes not relevant for analysts), and the firm's performance - understandably your firm doesn't know any of this when they hand you an offer. It's a way to hedge out tail risk on both sides (if the market does poorly or everyone pays out the ass because everyone is leaving for Google / McK).

I don't have the perspective of a large IB but no one guarantees a bonus or we'd just make it salary or deferred comp based on how long you stay. All of our offer letters just say up to X% based on all of the bs factors, including personal performance but also including market conditions, overall firm performance and if an asteroid strikes Bangor. I usually tell offers that if they, and especially we, do very well it's not a cap but I also have worked at smaller firms where we can be more flexible. And it's an honest statement: we've written up to 100% but that person rocked and we had a banner year so we gave them far more than 100%.