PE/Growth Equity Sourcing Commission Fair?
I received an offer at a growth equity shop out of undergrad and instead of bonus analysts are paid a commission of $2,500 + 30 basis points of the deal sourced.
e.g If I source a $1M deal I would get $2500 + $3000 = $5500 as a bonus.
Is this commission structure in line with other sourcing roles in PE?
bump
I haven’t seen a commission structure but have limited data points. It’s basically in line with how classic sales / BD roles compensate so wouldn’t be surprised to see the industry head this way.
In terms of quality of the offer... I think of growth deals as starting at $10M+ so 30 bps can be a decent chunk of change, esp if you’re at a “later growth” type firm.
On the other hand... if the coverage universe is crowded (ie, there’s 40 people sourcing), your first year or two could be quite lean. At firms like Insight anything that has potential to be a deal imminently is extremely well-covered, and first years basically need to start with companies that are a year or two out from being “in the box.”
Finally, this structure is telling you that this shop values sourcing output above EVERYTHING else. If you’re not as into the idea of a BD type role (I know some people say “I’ll do it for a couple years then focus more on execution”), you may find yourself burnt out pretty fast in an environment like this
Thanks for the response! This is an earlier stage firm that also dabbles in VC deals, so average deal size is closer to $4M. Still a decent paycheck per deal I guess.
What are the bps based on? Equity check written? Enterprise Value? What type of deals does the firm usually do? What do they consider sourced? Like no one from the firm has ever talked to the company before? Does it have to be in the database?
If the firm is really young, without many full time BD folks and they're more in the growth or early stage investing world, then you could potentially make pretty good money.
If you're at a more mature shop, that has a lower deal volume, it's pretty unlikely that you'll source and close something in less than a few years. Not impossible, but it's tough.
As far as what the market structure is, there isn't really one from what I've heard. Some places like Alpine will pay out for a bunch of different milestones during the sourcing process. So stuff like, 2k if we get to management meeting stage, 5k if we send a term sheet etc. So they reward close but not closed deals. Really just depends on the firm and the firms level of maturity/structure around sourcing.
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