Terrible Bonuses? What are peopleexpecting?

Anyone have thoughts on where bonus will land this year for 1st and 2nd year IB analysts? Seems like they will be substantially lower than last year. I know we still got a month or two before they are announced, but any thoughts?

For my situation I think a bonus range of 40-60K but maybe I’m on the low end.

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I think juniors across the street are going to be very disappointed this year.

Last year was absolutely insane and was a ridiculous year for comp given base raises + huge bonuses. Think people now are expecting similar bonus bands (100%+) on top of an already higher salary.

Deal flow is down at least 25%, if not more in some sectors (looking at you ECM and Spacs). This incremental 25% is where a lot of the bonus pool comes from, because fixed costs are relatively constant, so it’s the overperformance that allows huge bonuses.

Every bank also increased headcount last year, some as much as 50% or more at the junior level. Current deal flow just does not support that. Do the math on -25% in revenue +25% in headcount costs and see how bonuses are impacted.

Lastly, think everyone here got swindled a bit by base raises. If you’re bank raised to $110k in may and you got a $150k bonus in June, that doesn’t mean you made $260k total comp. You made 85k for 10/12 months so a lot of that bonus was essentially just making you whole for the months you weren’t raised yet.

A few years ago, a good bonus in a good year was considered 100%, but base was 85k so all in was considered really good at $170k. That would mean a $60k bonus this year, which I think would piss off a lot of people here and is honestly higher than I’d expect at a lot of places

 

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