MM PE: Salary seems a bit low compared to IB?

Having headhunters reaching out to me from time to time, and I cannot help notice that MM PE's pay is not great. It's the lowest compared MF PE and banking in general. I'm not even at a BB/EB and I can see my pay > MM PE pay.

11 Comments
 

Use the search button. This has been covered a hundred times. Long story short, you're likely not seeing a bump in cash pay when leaving banking. You're playing for carry, which you likely won't even get for a few years and even then, it takes another few years to actually materialize, assuming your investments go well. I'd suggest figuring out if you like being an advisor or a principal, there are pro's/con's to each. 

 

Record banking comp/salary raises from 2021 are not good data points to compare to PE. IB is a short-term, deal-focused industry and PE returns come over 5-10 years. You might make more in any given year in IB esp as a junior, but over the course of a career in PE you will likely make more money than banking.

But both are so well-paid you need to think about more than just comp and figure out which you actually enjoy.

 
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What he’s saying is somewhat right. I think across the street deal flows seems to have slowed down. Obviously equity deals have been dead since the start of the year and have noticed companies shying away from debt deals the past few weeks because of rising borrowing costs. For reference I’m in a heavier deal flow group at a BB (BAML/Citi/Barc/CS). Would imagine this is street-wide, seen more posts on Litquidity/here about deal activity being down.

A few M&A processes are still going strong in my group but I think valuation expectations are lower than even ~3-4 months ago (not to mention 6 months ago) and have noticed buyers dropping from processes citing macro concerns.

I still think the job market is strong and we have a huge incoming analyst/associate class still. Haven’t heard of layoffs either. Spoke with a second year in my group about whether they think our bonuses will be down much and they didn’t think so.

 

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