Was IBD really THIS high paying back in the 2007 bubble?

Came across this today

Full article here.

A 32-year old banker pulling in $700,000? These days are Vice Presidents in IBD raking in anything near this? Sort of makes me want to reneg on my interest purely in Research...

42 Comments
 

Those were good days. I look back at my peak total comp from that era and dream of seeing that number again.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

Post-MBA IBD has picked up, but it's nowhere near pre-financial crisis and never will be (at least in the foreseeable future). Ditto for S&T.

A bunch of my classmates got IBD offers and are deciding on whether to accept. Very few of them actually WANT banking. Some of them are depressed at the prospect of working 80-90 hours/week for a job in overpriced NYC that doesn't pay that much. Yes, IBD raised base by 25%, and signing bonus is pretty decent, but once you factor in NY state tax, NYC city tax, outrageous rent, higher COL for virtually everything, and lack of desirable post-MBA IBD exit opps (going from post-mba ibd to buyside is very hard), it's just not that great of a deal. My classmates recognize this, hence their hesitation to accept the offers.

 

Finance is coming back. I think the tech bubble is coming to the end in the next 2 years. If Stanford GSB grads are moving back to Finance over tech, you know it's a leading indicator.

 

Aren't we saying exactly the same thing? I know of at least one bank that has a very literal cap on the amount of cash that can make up comp - doesn't affect your comp figure, but once your comp becomes higher than that level you get cash to the cap and stock for the rest.

 
notthehospitalER

Aren't we saying exactly the same thing? I know of at least one bank that has a very literal cap on the amount of cash that can make up comp - doesn't affect your comp figure, but once your comp becomes higher than that level you get cash to the cap and stock for the rest.

No, we're not saying the same thing at all.

In your scenario, if someone were to get a $200k bonus, and the bank had a "cap" at $100k, that person would get $100k in cash and $100k in stock. This is NOT how it works.

In my scenario (aka reality), if someone were to get a $200k bonus, that person would get $100k in cash + 33% of the next $100k in stock and 67% in cash, equating to total bonus comp of $167k in cash, $33k in stock.

All of the above numbers only apply to bonus comp (base is unaffected and always all-cash) and obviously the numbers are theoretical, since the "cap" as well as the %' stock / cash split differs by bank. However, what you've described (a hard cap on cash comp) is completely off-market. I highly doubt "at least one bank" has a "literal cap" on comp, and even if it does - again, that's totally off-market. The more likely explanation, however, is that you don't know wtf you're talking about.

 

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