Have two offers on the table both in MCOL locations 1. a LMM PE Associate with significantly below market pay (~30% below comp averages) and 2. a corp dev role that is more in line with the corp dev market (~$200k all in), would taking the LMM PE role have better exit opportunities? Would be fine taking less money now if it means better optionality and an easier path to future/potential earnings.
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What exactly is the lmm PE pay?
~$140k incl base + bonus with a small amount of carry
$140k all in is the lowest PE associate comp I’ve ever heard of. I would be weary of a fund that pays massively below market. It says a lot about leadership, and I’m sure that cheapness manifests itself in other aspects
What is your current role? Are you able to stay long enough to recruit for a better PE gig to come along?
Kinda depends on your previous experience. If you have no PE experience at all, I would consider taking the PE role.... IF you want to stay in investing seats in the future.
How would you view the opportunities if I have banking + PE experience (1 year banking + 1.5 year PE)? Current fund isn't doing well so will need to make a move soon.
Assuming it's a traditional fund, $140k all in is low, however I would use that as a data point to evaluate what your experience would be like at the fund and what skillset you will be building, and less about the comp differential. If the fund is performing well and you expect to have a lot of strong deal experience, I would highly consider taking the PE fund offer.
You don't have to stay there your whole career, and assuming you are a strong performer, you can always switch funds again and get reset to market that way. It will be structurally harder to get back into a PE Senior Associate or VP seat back from Corp Dev (much easier to recruit upwards for a Senior Associate opening at another LMM firm, for example). If you go to recruit again the new firm doesn't need to know you were underpaid (and you shouldn't tell them).
Will reiterate though - this is all dependent on the new PE seat being a good one and assuming you will get strong deal experience. I'm in the LMM as well and was underpaid vs market for much of my Associate tenure - things have worked out and am now in a partner-track role and have more than caught up on the comp side.
thank you, this is helpful. One follow up, if the new fund is not performing that well (middle of the pack returns with not really much differentiation), would you still pick the PE role?
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