23 Comments
 

Are you currently in Italy? Was wondering if fluency in Italian is required.

 

Seeing a lot of focus on Milan here and makes sense given it's status as practically French/Swiss...  To add to the geographies covered - from experience working in Rome as a SA at a Big4, COL there is peanuts compared to London (where I grew up). Was spending €30-45/week on groceries and that was more than plentiful (could have got by spending probably €20-25 and been fine but it was Italy... very good fresh produce available for not very much so went ham). Rent was not too bad either from what I recall - c. €900/month (shared accommodation). 

But this all needs to be balanced against Roman salaries which are less than those commanded in Milan (higher COL as everyone has mentioned). Not a place to make money (Partners at my firm were on €200k all-in)...

 

A bschool friend of mine worked at one of the better italian PE firm pre-mba. He ended up moving to a BB for the significantly higher comp. Outside of a very few select roles with international firms (and there aren't many), comp in southern europe is truly abyssal. The COL is lower, but in a city like Milan, nowhere near low enough to compensate for the much lower take-home pay. You add higher taxes and living there really doesn't allow for a better lifestyle. Not to mention that my personal experience with Milan is that it's one of the worst place for work life balance in finance / consulting.

 
Most Helpful

Recently found this article published by PageGroup and BeBeez where they've interviewed most of the funds in Italy (https://bebeez.it/files/2020/10/Studio-di-Settore_Private-Equity.pdf). In summary:
i) Analyst/Senior analyst: 30-55k base + 20-30% bonus 
ii) Associate: 45-75k + 40-50%
iii) Investment Manager: 70-120k + 50-80%
Obviously it depends on many factors, among which the AUM of the fund. For funds >500mln the bonus goes up to 100% for analysts/associates/managers according to this report. 
What do you think? Are these figures accurate in ur opinion? Wouldn't it be best to work in London / Switzerland / France?

 

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