Why exit to corp dev
Don't understand why anyone in IB would ever exit to corp dev. Hours are 40-65 and pay is awful, saw some people quoting $300-400 all-in at the most senior level.
At that point why not just go to asset management or corporate banking where you'll make a multiple of this working similar hours.
Neither corporate banking nor asset management is the same type of work as CD. Most asset management roles comp similar to CD.
I know a senior (40-50 years old) in Municipal bonds at an asset manager and he pulls in $1.1mm/yr working low hours.
Okay? And I know people in CD who make a multiple of that. All compensation data in these types of front office and pseudo-front office roles are heavily skewed right.
You now realize most IBD skillsets are garbage and non-transferable to anywhere? It's only traditional PE/IBD (which both aren't really exit actually, you are doing same type of work, putting same hours) and corp dev would value such useless skillsets.
It is a buyers' market. If you are good enough for PE/IBD, you continue to make banks. If you aren't, please take 50% salary off and be exploited. Enjoy.
Edit: 13 MS and no one attempted to refute anything. Bizarre
AM is extremely, extremely hard to get into, and you are basically beholden to market movements which you have no control over
Corp banking is no picnic either
I think $300-400 for corp dev MD sounds very very low
Corp dev is a corporate function where MD isn't generally a title. It's usually director -> senior director -> VP -> EVP. It's rare for a company to have a Corp Dev EVP. VP is generally the ceiling. A corp dev VP *might* make 400K all in.
Being tied to the actual project is what it’s about! Way better hours. pay terrible? On hourly basis? Not at all.
What keeps you coming back is being part of a team actively looking for ways to improve a company. You get to be the strategic thinker, executer and the project manager. Did it before IB and I miss a lot of aspects of it.
You realize, money isn't everything in life, right?
Excuse me sir but money is life
I make ~400k as a director, though admittedly I am on the higher end. CD roles have a somewhat bimodal distribution - the deal heavy ones with good comp that require IB/deal chops, and the ones that are comp'd more like regular corporate finance where M&A is not prioritized. As an example, a senior CD role like head of M&A at a PE-backed rollup should easily clear $1m a year.
Associate (got him from banking) is abroad on vacation this week. We have a couple live deals right now. If this was PE/IB, he'd have been told to cancel his trip. I told him bring your laptop, but unless I slack you don't need to even really need to check your emails. I haven't slacked him. I just do a little extra work on my end, push some work to our buyside advisor (RIP banking analysts), and deprioritize/adjust some of the deliverables based on capacity.
I could have forced him to grind and theoretically there's the option to work evenings to get every single thing done ASAP, but I'd rather go to the gym and watch TV. My boss is pretty reasonable, and I don't have some asshole PE/IB MD asking where the materials are.
How many YoE was it to director and did you start in IB? What are your thoughts on IB vs. corp dev in terms of salary, career progression etc. after being on the other side?
About 6 years to director. I got lucky in a couple different ways in that I "skipped" banking and went into a deal-heavy corpdev group right out of undergrad where I got lots of exposure. Overall probably means someone who went the traditional banking route and top bucket likely has slightly better technical skills than me, though I might win out in terms of deal diligence/process and some market/strategic type stuff.
IB is going to make more money, especially looking at straight cash. In CD, a good portion of comp will be in equity - RSU's with some vesting schedule, or PSU's that only pop at an exit event (but can be worth millions). At the beginning of my career, I made less than I would have in banking, and in the last couple years I pulled even/slightly ahead. Most likely the bankers are about to start pulling ahead, again, and I might not ever catch them lol. But like the other guy said, the marginal dollar matters less and less, at least to me, though the monkey part of my bran like numbers going up.
IB is going to have worse hours generally. I'd also say combined with the nature of the work, it can be definitely be more soul sucking. My work tends to be a lot more focused - for example, most of my production is a sets of relatively clean PDF pages of Excel analyses with commentary, etc. or an emailed memo versus having to produce exhaustive decks and formatting in Powerpoint. And it's focused on specific diligence topics, a lot more cross-functional on underlying trends / operational nuances than pure financial analysis. Thankfully, I've never had to make a CIM and our approval memos are typically a dozen pages.
Deal crunch time is deal crunch time regardless, and stakes are ultimately higher when you're the "principal" versus an adviser or service provider. I've sent emails at every hour of the day, pulled all-nighters, etc. including hopping on a meeting at 4am local time after a destination wedding + afterparty. But I have the optionality to chill the fuck out when I need to / based on my judgement.
Career progression is probably a little more linear in banking where up to VP there is a clear path. In CD, it can be a little more difficult and require some job hopping, since new seats don't often open up in the same organization. But, CD in a small and faster growing org can be very nice - you're never more than one or two steps away from the C-suite, and it can be a quick path there.
This is how it should be in a deal heavy group. I'm a Manager (VP level for banking) at a PortCo of a PE firm and report to our CFO. Nature of O&G is we're always in deal mode so there's always things to do and some times you need to stretch into the night or weekend, but for the most part you get stuff done during the business day. We are in the middle of due diligence on a deal right now and I had to attend a wedding last weekend...boss told me essentially the same thing as poster here...he'll text me if he needs anything but for the most part he'll pick up the slack while I'm gone. He refreshed the model as needed, updated status trackers, etc. It's not that big of a deal. You get to still do the things that are interesting to those who find it interesting (modeling, strategy, etc.) and you get to do it at a much more humane pace. Do you take a discount to do the humane pace? Absolutely, but marginal value of money at a certain point and it's not like $200/$300/$400k is chump change for most of america.
How is your $400k set up? Does that include equity / incentive units? What industry?
I'm in Year 1 as a director at a small PE healthcare roll-up and will be at ~$250k all-in this year before equity. Congrats to you regardless, that's a great gig.
$160k base, 50% bonus, remainder RSU's. I've been around long enough that I vest the equivalent of my annual grant each year now. I'm at a small/midcap publicly traded tech co.
Congrats to you too. Depending on what your equity is worth I don't think we're too far off from each other. Plus staring at my RSU's and how the market performed recently just makes me sad.
I'm in it for 2 more bonus cycles then I'm jumping ship to a corp dev/strategy role. Senior management at my firm has a "banking is life" and "we own you" mentality and I'm tired of having to explain to them that I have no intention of building my life around my career, my career needs to fit into my life. I want to enjoy my life completely, not just 1 or 2 weeks per year when I'm on vacation.
Were you A2A or an MBA associate? Curious how you decided when was "enough" for you - is it a savings / net worth amount?
I was A2A but I also have an MBA. I've never subscribed to the banker mentality of doing everything for the deal and false sense of urgency of needing everything right now for no reason and as I get closer to the next rung of the ladder for Director promotion I just can't deal with the nonsense anymore. The push for back to the office full time is also a deal break for me as well, the major cities (NY, SF, Chicago) where the majority of banking resides aren't worth living in anymore. As a VP the exits are a lot more attractive and my sector expertise is in Tech so I have considerable options on that front as well. The waiting 2 more bonus cycles is less about actually needing the money and more that I have a handful of deals I want to see through but I also want to be paid for them.
In the next few years as the major cities continue to decline I think we'll see a lot more people at the VP and above levels exiting IB, realizing it's just not worth it anymore. Remote work opened my eyes to the possibilities being able to live somewhere I actually wanted to live and still be very effective at my job and I'm definitely not the only one thinking the money just isn't enough anymore.
I am considering doing something similar as well. I have also just thought about moving elsewhere within the bank, I am at a BB so there are a lot roles that could be potnetially transferred into, even if its more of some random internal operations type role, depnding on comp of course. Easier to make sure I get to keep remaining RSUs this way too.
A VP I worked with went to CorpDev to be closer to family and actually be able to spend time with them
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