M&A Analyst AMA

By the way, I want to clear something up. When I said that there was an intern who didn't get an offer because he ate lunch for an hour, I meant that this is only inappropriate to do during an internship. As an analyst, you can eat lunch for an hour if you want (except during extremely busy periods- rare) as long as you make an effort to socialise and talk to your fellow analysts. The intern I mentioned literally just sat on his own eating and contemplating life or whatever for an hour- unacceptable both because interns should eat lunch at their desks and/or should spend their lunch eating and talking to fellow interns. An hour eating and socialising and talking about work is fine- an hour just sitting in a corner eating and not doing anything is not.

Although, there are rumours among us IBD guys that some derivs traders do actually do this lol


@Princepieman @studos

I know you're in IBD but do you happen to know what compensation is like in trading? I've heard that it's £50000 for a first year, and £100000 for a first year associate. Could you verify whether that is true?

Base pay is similar across the two but bonuses tend to be lower for s&t analysts. Mainly because they're either still rotating or are in a de facto 'trading assistant or sales assistant' role til they get their own book. After that, pay depends on how much revenue you bring in (aka trading PnL or sales volume).

£50 base is street for 1st year analysts,
£70-80 base for associate 0 (first 6 months)
£85-100 base for 1st year associates depending on bank.

Posted from TSR Mobile

By the way, I want to clear something up. When I said that there was an intern who didn't get an offer because he ate lunch for an hour, I meant that this is only inappropriate to do during an internship. As an analyst, you can eat lunch for an hour if you want (except during extremely busy periods- rare) as long as you make an effort to socialise and talk to your fellow analysts. The intern I mentioned literally just sat on his own eating and contemplating life or whatever for an hour- unacceptable both because interns should eat lunch at their desks and/or should spend their lunch eating and talking to fellow interns. An hour eating and socialising and talking about work is fine- an hour just sitting in a corner eating and not doing anything is not.

Although, there are rumours among us IBD guys that some derivs traders do actually do this lol


@Princepieman @studos

Base pay is similar across the two but bonuses tend to be lower for s&t analysts. Mainly because they're either still rotating or are in a de facto 'trading assistant or sales assistant' role til they get their own book. After that, pay depends on how much revenue you bring in (aka trading PnL or sales volume).

£50 base is street for 1st year analysts,
£70-80 base for associate 0 (first 6 months)
£85-100 base for 1st year associates depending on bank.

Posted from TSR Mobile

What are the bonuses usually like for analysts and associates in trading?

Don't have numbers for that unfortunately.. My estimate would maybe be 20-50% of base in the analyst (pre-book) stage. After that it's dependent on PnL.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Thanks for the help. I didn't realise it would be that much for an analyst.

Welcome to high finance I guess. Of course, variable pay (bonus) varies based on your ranking as an analyst (amongst your peers and managers) and performance.

whats the difference between performance and ranking? the distinction implies you are not ranked based on performance

whats the difference between performance and ranking? the distinction implies you are not ranked based on performance

Performance is one aspect of ranking. You usually get a '360' review done about you from your peers, which includes a lot of non-tangible stuff '(Is X good to work with?, How likely would you recommend X to a colleague?', 'How well does X do Y?' etc..) in the form of a survey. So, it's about perfoming but also being liked.

You're not. Varying degrees of politics will always come into play. If you're really liked by the right people, you will get a higher ranking. In saying that, on the whole, banking is extremely meritocratic compared to other industries. If you own your P&L (MD in M&A or Trading) then your performance is very obvious. If you're a Junior in M&A, not so easy.

Base pay is similar across the two but bonuses tend to be lower for s&t analysts. Mainly because they're either still rotating or are in a de facto 'trading assistant or sales assistant' role til they get their own book. After that, pay depends on how much revenue you bring in (aka trading PnL or sales volume).

£50 base is street for 1st year analysts,
£70-80 base for associate 0 (first 6 months)
£85-100 base for 1st year associates depending on bank.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Why did you become an Analyst?

Well I have been interested in business and finance from an early age. I stumbled upon banking in a careers fair and liked the look of it. Learned more about finance, realised i was suited to it and applied.