LevFin vs M&A Comp
How does LevFin comp compare to M&A? Both in terms of base salary and bonus.
Asking mainly for Europe (london and paris)
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A2 in LevFin origination at a European bank here. At my bank, base is around 10-20% lower in LevFin vs. M&A and a top ranked analyst might get 50% bonus in LevFin while that could go up to 80-90% in M&A for the same analyst. Overall, M&A pays higher at my bank but comes with much worse hours.
Can you elaborate more on the hours? Like how much worse...
Depends on geography but I would say LevFin works around 60-70 hours on average with 70-80h peaks when on full execution mode, so varies a lot depending on deal flow. Rarely connect on weekends. A usual day is 9AM-9:30PM. We don’t do that much marketing as this is a top tier team in Europe and a LevFin pitch is usually pretty light anyway… On the other hand, M&A is usually constantly working past midnight and occasional work on the weekend given heavy marketing work while you are usually also staffed on 1 or 2 live deals at the same time.
I worked in both teams, at the end it all comes down to what you prefer and potentially exit opps.
This was very helpful thank you!
What's the best way to lateral to Lev Fin from M&A?
Thanks!
This depends on your bank but in general, I do believe that M&A gives you a more broader skillset than LevFin, as in M&A you can be staffed on any type of deal wether that involves financing or not… The typical LevFin analyst mostly works on LBOs, although nowadays it’s mostly refis and A&Es with a few exceptions. That being said, while LevFin does have a lot of technical stuff you need to know I think any good M&A analyst should be able to transition to LevFin… you might need to brush up a bit on LBO modeling especially on the debt side (various debt tranches, etc.) but it’s more than doable.
what will be the career development of LevFin? Much appreciated!
I would say that the usual exit opps of LevFin are private credit / direct lending, capital markets at a PE, or any other credit focused investing (credit HFs, etc.). At my bank, some people stay for the long term given the reasonable hours and comp. I’m sure PE is also doable if you know how to model and have some basic M&A knowledge…
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