US vs. European (Swiss, Scandinavian) High Finance
Curious if hedge funds / private equity funds pay relatively on par with the US across different levels?
Currently working in NYC but am thinking about relocating to either Switzerland or Stockholm in a few years. Also would love to learn more about the career progression in finance in those countries as well. Any insighsts would be much appreciated!
For context: I traveled around EU for a few months recently and really liked the people and the culture there. Not saying Americans are not great but europeans generally are more educated (given education is essentially free there) and classier. You can travel to different countries in EU so easily and the quality of food / life is soo much better. I love NYC but everytime I come back to the city, the stress and everything hit me pretty hard. People hustle here and never stop- I don't mind working hard but would love to still have some life probably at a later stage of my life / career.
I understand leaving NY means giving so much upside in your career so really appreciate any responses / insights here.
Can comment on Sweden. For background, I worked in PE then HF in New York. My girlfriend is Swedish and was working in PE before moving to the US. I went through the interview process at two firms in Sweden to see if it made sense for me to move before deciding it made more sense for her to move.
Pay: As the other commenter mentioned, the pay is substantially less. Girlfriend was an associate in PE and her base was $85,000 and her bonus was around $30,000. After taxes it came out to be around $70,000. The one offer I received from a HF in Stockholm was for a $110,000 base with expected bonus of 50-80%. So after tax I would be left with about $100,000. For context I was bringing home around $275,000 after tax in New York at the time lol.
Career Progression: Completely non existent for me due to not speaking Swedish. Was directly told I would have to enroll in Swedish classes to have a chance of moving up at the fund. Most people at my girlfriend’s PE firm would end up joining corporate due to how long promotions took past the VP level.
With that being said, the quality of life is higher than the US but you do make a trade for it. Eventually girlfriend ended up moving to the US instead. Will be happy to answer more questions if needed
Very helpful. The point of moving to Scandinavia is to get a swedish girlfriend but looks like you already got one- good for you man lol.
The salaries seem very low given living expenses are pretty high in Stockholm. How about mega funds and etc though? For instance, I know Ares has an office in Stockholm, shouldn't it be global pay?
I might be wrong on this so if someone else corrects me by all means listen to them…
But when I was in PE the way it worked is that our European teams would be paid out of a separate fund. So for example we had:
- North American fund VII
-European fund IV
-Nordic fund II
Depending on what country/region you were covering you would get paid out of that specific fund performance. So if the North America team had a great year but the European team didn’t, only the NA team would be getting paid out bigger bonuses, and vice versa.
Whenever we had an American transfer to the European office they were expected to take about a 30%-40% pay cut as well, so I don’t believe pay is global.
It's fund to fund. General Atlantic for example has global standardized base pay.
Would all-in be substantially lower?
Can someone please also comment on Switzerland? Curious how much do funds like Partners Group pay at associate, VP and MD levels? Assuming should be similar to the US?
I'm very fond of Switzerland and Sweden- think they really have a much better quality of life there- beatiful landscape and etc. Language is not an issue
PG is a cultish company that underpays relative to the market here in Switzerland. The reason for this is that PG is a fantastic brand name in the DACH region and having it on your CV will allow you to move on to a smaller fund with better pay. Think of it as the "Goldman discount." The work culture in Switzerland is risk averse, hierarchical, more about "being Swiss" than being good, and the Swiss dislike performance based pay. Continental Europeans tend to dislike performance based pay as it violates the hierarchy and it doesn't makes sense to them that a lower-ranked person should out earn a higher ranked person, even if that person generated more value. The only place in Europe that pays well is London (more Anglo-Saxon mindset) and even in London you get paid less than in the US. Also, Europeans tend not to change jobs very often and job-hopping for better pay is frowned upon.
Language is 100% an issue in both countries. While everyone speaks English, people tend to form their social groups early (usually school friends from their local village) which makes it very difficult to break in and make friends if you can't converse in the local language/dialect. Both offer high standards of living, and Switzerland offers fantastic low taxes that American's can only dream of, but both are insular and boring, highly conformist, and generally prioritize group think over individuality. There is a reason why Switzerland will never create a Netflix/Amazon/Uber/Google.....too risk averse and too insular.
I actually live right across from the PG office in Zug. You can spot the PG employees from a mile away.....they all wear the same uniform (white shirt/blue trousers/black shoes). They actually have a dress code and employees can get told off if their shirt is untucked or they wear the wrong color dress shirt. Imagine agent Smith from the Matrix haha. The company was founded by Mormons so that may explain some of it!
I get that high finance can be quite old school in EU but seems like the career progression and comps both suck.. surprising that you live there and have a such negative view. Seems like I may not be able to move there ever..
Curious if you’d prefer to work in the US instead?
Can you also comment on some reputable hf shops in Switzerland? If pay is less, with lower taxes and etc you can still have a pretty decent life?
Are there any hfs that focus on US markets? Would think that coming from wall st- should have an edge over local candidates right
Switzerland is really 3 countries (French part/German part/Italian part). You tend to have more HFs in Geneva but they tend to be more commodity/macro focused. I know Bluecrest and Moore Capital used to have big offices there. Pictet Asset Management has a HF team based in Geneva (currently looking for 2 L/S analysts) so they are also worth looking into. The German speaking part is where the banks are (UBS/CS/Vontobel/ZKB) which all have offices in Zurich. There are loads of small (like 100m AUM) HFs run around lake Zurich/Zug but they tend to be closed shops run by Swiss guys who are suspicious of Aüslander (outsiders). The big fund in the German speaking part is Cevian (big activist player in Europe) and they tend to hire former IB/MBB guys. You only have 1 real event-driven fund of any scale in Zurich, called p-squared asset management. They do merger arb and special sits and tend to hire from London as the local talent is not that strong so you might have a shot with them. A real up and coming place is called Teleios Capital which is an activist fund based in Zug and also tends to hire from London.
To be frank, without a Swiss/EU passport, I can't really see you having any chance at getting hired here given the large pool of candidates in Europe to choose from. There are enough Swiss/German guys working in IB/HFs in London who want to move back to Switzerland once they get married/want kids so it's just easier to take those guys.
From an Anglo background, working in continental EU. Can confirm the other comments have hit the nail on the head re the trade-off between pay ceiling and quality of life.
A extra detail I would like to add for Switzerland is that Switzerland has no capital gains tax. So, if you are investing or already have a nest egg, Switzerland is a great place to compound wealth.
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