I am thinking on moving to PE as an associate, curious to see how salary and lifestyle is at different US and European firms.
Is it normal to
i) Receive full compensation in cash
ii) Get a salary discount
iii) Improve lifestyle
For those who have made the move, what would you advice?
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Hi - Usually comp for UMM / LC is around 90-120k base + 100% bonus. Some outliers (e.g. WP, Apollo) pay slightly more.
Usually, UMM / LC does not grant carry to Assocs / Senior Assocs.
Lifestyle = Banking
You refer working post 1-2am as an associate and most wekeends?
3rd year associate at a MF here. The hours you describe are not typical in PE.
I work past 10pm 25% of days and have had my weekend completely blown up by work 10 times during my tenure. I typically do 1-3 hours of work per weekend, at a time that suits me. Of course there are times when it's much more intense than this (e.g. months where you sleep very little because you're on a live deal) and you need to be responsive and available when work does come up unexpectedly, but it's very possible to have decent work-life balance in my experience.
I suspect it's worse than this at some funds (e.g. H&F is known to be a sweatshop) and I wouldn't advertise work-life balance as a key decision criteria as you go through recruiting as it's a bit of a red flag, but you can definitely find a seat that offers meaningful improvement if you're used to working past midnight & most weekends.
Following
bump
MM funds typically pay less than IB while MFs pay on par or more
I am currently an IB associate contemplating a move to PE in London but not feeling very keen unless an amazing gig for a few reasons
1) most funds will pay less than IB on base
2) no junior resources so I'd have to start doing model/slides which I have analysts support in IB
3) I myself enjoy working on transactions and less so on portfolio work; have heard from a few friends that they spend significant time working on their portcos
Curious about other people's opinions.
This is pretty much right. London MM will be approx 75% - 50% of MF as base comp. Although, more likely to get carry and be able to move upwards.
Agree on limited junior resources (and sometimes external spend...)
Agree on PortCo - can get sucked into processing bolt-ons
Can only answer from my pov (and some insights from speaking to friends):
i) Typically yes, although my fund already gives carry at the associate level (which is only paid out in cash when the fund is liquidated). The more senior you become, the larger the proportion of carry to your overall compensation becomes (think >60-70%)
ii) For UMM: typically yes // for MF: depends, there's some wide variation but I would say either in line or above (for me: it was a 65% increase, but I moved as AN2 in IB into AS1 in PE)
iii) Generally yes, I tend to finish work around 7pm - 9pm on most days, 11pm - 12.30am when in the DD phase of deal execution, and anywhere from 11pm - early morning the 2 weeks leading towards IC
Separately, your decision to move to PE should be entirely based on whether or not you want to become an investor or not. The higher or lower salary you'll be making in those earlier years, will be completely marginal to what you'll be making later on in this industry (whether in IB, PE, HF or something else). Sure improved lifestyle certainly plays a role as well, but depending on the fund, you're still going to finish work too late to do anything else anyway (Mon-Thu).
Thanks for sharing.
Few questions:
- How much time spent between new deals / sourcing / portco?
- Approx. fund size / range?
- 100% deals, we have Portfolio teams to look at PortCos
- Latest fund size: >$10bn
UMM and MF pay the same in London with the exception of 3-4 US funds (which are also ahead of the rest of the MFs)
What do they usually Pay?
How do hours differ between MF / MM / Growth Equity? Obviously it will depend on the firm, but wondering if there are any general differences.
Also interested in whether there are any firms that are notorious for having good / bad hours.
Have heard that H&F, Warburg, and Silver Lake are very sweaty. Most firms I have heard good things about in terms of culture / hours are growth equity shops.
Advent can be rough.
What are the hours like + weekend work?
Am talking to a few seniors and don’t seem that bad but maybe they’re just biased
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