Leaving After 6 Months due to comp - help
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What's your base and level of work experience? What is the target bonus for your role? Rough AUM? Also, did you mention it's an independent sponsor and not a fund?
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I think the independent sponsor is the core issue here. I've never seen one that is able to generate consistent earnings for younger staff.
10k as opposed to 50k is a huge slap in the face, agreed. If I were you I would make it to one year and then leave.
Sorry to hear that. It’s pretty distasteful to take a significant cut from the junior’s target bonus in a bad year for the firm - it’s already a relatively minuscule expense, so it really isn’t necessary.
Assuming your target was much higher, I would try to lateral. Opportunities definitely exist.
My thoughts exactly.
Sorry to hear that as well. How did they justify the “bad year”? Fees are fixed in PE and carry is upside.
Should be easy to lateral. Ind sponsor at the bottom of the food chain so everybody will understand desire to trade up. Make it about opportunity not comp in the interviews
Agreed. I've met maybe 50 independent sponsors in my career and only one of them was actually wealthy - he was really a one man shop that knew how to get in and get out of businesses repeatedly. Most of them try and talk about how they are so much more agile than fund investors but they'd give their wife up for committed capital.
I can’t comment on whole financial independent sponsor industry but the firm I work for is able to consistently raise money from the same set of family offices every time and then it’s a matter of finding one additional big LP for each deal. Once you develop a track record, being able to raise for each deal on favorable terms becomes somewhat easy…because at the end of the day, most of these guys care about track record and then they’re just looking for a simple thesis. The economics and timing can be nice since it’s based on individual deals (for people with carry that is). I’m not sure your definition of wealthy - but the partners at my firm would definitely qualify.
The big issues as highlighted above from my perspective are the volatility in fees coming to the firm, which hits harder for junior guys like myself and 2) It’s harder to chase deals that will get bigger multiples - even if there’s a good rationale for paying - because investors become incredibly value conscious when looking at a individual deal.
I definitely never want to return to this model, especially as an associate. I do think if the partners at my firm were younger, they would try to raise a fund….but you can definitely still get rich as independent sponsor.
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