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From my limited experience in an F500 M&A role...
Hours around 50, more before board meetings and during a deal, but nothing insane really, 70 hours tops, and maybe once or twice a year depending on how many acquisitions they do.
Pay - Analyst - probably 70k, senior analyst 75-85k, manager 100k+, also depends on region/industry/etc...
Hope thats helpful.
Yes. Hours will be much less than PE generally, but you won't make as much. I've heard around 50 hours a week as well, but all in pay is usually higher than the above post. From the headhunters I've spoken with, comp for someone in a senior analyst type role (which you'd be look at coming out of IB) would be 80k base + 10% bonus on the lower end to a little over $100k + bonus on the higher end. All in, you'd probably be a bit below or flat compared to an IB analyst, but you'd be working ~50 hours a week instead of 80+.
My experience is that the pay is a decent amount lower than IB. The salaries I've seen are similar to what Khalid stated.
I also agree that hours are 45-50 hours most weeks and more if you're getting more serious on a deal.
Yeah, I think the pay is highly regionally dependent as well, and in NYC, SF, LA a sr. analyst could probably pull down close to 100k all in, but honestly thats probably the exception rather than the norm.
I interviewed with a large financial institution/MF for a corp dev/corp strategy role and they told me they wanted to pay 55k, for someone with at least 2-3 years IB or MBB experience... I literally laughed at the HR rep.
One other bad think about corp dev, depending on the company, is that if their business is highly cyclical you may never even do a deal in 2 years working there and spend all your time monkeying with strategy presentations and other stupid sh*t.
There are some positives though (like fewer hours).
Which industries pay the most for corp dev professionals?
Tech.
Generally the bigger the company, the more money you will likely be getting. The most sought after corp dev jobs are at highly acquisitive companies with big brand names - Facebook, Apple, Google, Uber.
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