Expected carry compensation at senior associate/VP level?

Curious if the community has any ideas or data points to help benchmark carry in PE at the senior associate/VP level. My firm has always given senior associates carry, and latest fund size is $5-6bn, and the firm's founder still heads up the firm. What are somepossible ranges for senior associates? And how would that stack up at shops of other sizes?

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These threads come up from time to time and the answer is that there is no standard, especially at the senior associate level. From my own experience, some shops will give negligible or no carry but pay a high cash comp (ie. continue on the associate model) knowing most senior associates won't last more than a handful a years before being pushed out because there's not seat for them anymore. On the other hand, some shops might be more generous (seen anywhere from $10mm - 40mm carry $ at play, although the top of the range is more for VPs and with long vesting), but at the cost of a lower cash comp. There quite a few HH that do comp survey and they are not hard to get access to and I think those will give you a pretty good idea of the range of comps.

 

I don't understand your math?? Assuming 20% carry, 2x return and a 5 year vesting, it works out to $8mm of carry allocated over 5 years = $1.6mm / year. I know 2 people who got similar carry allocation and it was both a case of 1) newly raised fund 2) 7 year vesting 3) mid-level VP expected to stay on (ie. this allocation would cover the next 4-7 years until a new fund is raised and during which people will be promoted).

 

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