Would you take a c.20% paycut for more analysts (and less hours) in your class?

Disclaimer - I am not in banking i'm in M&A consulting which I moved to after an internship in banking where I got crushed and decided I liked M&A but the culture of banking definitely wasn't for me (see - hours)

Out of curiosity how many of you would happily take a 20% haircut on TC for a larger analyst group so work can get spread out more and the hours become less brutal (i.e. 12 analysts rather than 10), seems the high performers could still be delineated through higher bonuses and morale may improve? 

Note - this idea would completely hinge on MDs not creating more work because they have more resources which i'm not sure would happen but for the purpose of this assume it would.

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For me - yes, but for similar reasons to why you're in M&A consulting, I like the job but still deciding on whether I want to / can hack the hours. If the hours were  less brutal, that's worth a paycut for me.

Had a question- By M&A Consulting, are you talking about the likes of Big 4 M&A Advisory or something else?  Wondering how M&A Consulting  differs to IBD (apart from hours)  as this is definitely something I would look  into as I loved and did well in the job but hours are something I need to consider.

 
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I actually work in a boutique, considering the operational aspects of mergers/separations (mainly separations). Usually this is at the DD phase for PE houses. or writing a separation blueprint for a corporate/PE portco.

I tend to focus on the carveouts because I find it interesting, we try and understand how the business operates and what additions would be required for the company to be able to run standalone from its previous parent. Often this is a very independent factual document i.e. the finance function is currently fulfilled through shared services through benchmarking we determine you need X staff in Y structure, this will cost you X for recruitment and X in salaries. This all trickles down into the businesses EBITDA and therefore the transaction price. If this is done from the sellside we work with the bankers to correctly price the business, this stops the buyside coming in and pointing out all of these factors to lowball us.

Often on the buyside diligences we are working with the PE model and trying to assess operational value creation levers to determine their bid price, it's tricky because we don't want them to overbid or underbid (and lose the asset).

We also input into the creation of TSAs and help execute the transaction (see mainly PMO work) I usually try and avoid this stage though

 

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