How much am I worth? Head of Financial Institutions Group (FIG), corporate finance

A panel of specialist headhunters give their assessment of typical pay packages: Head of Financial Institutions Group (FIG), corporate finance, London: Salary 120,000-170,000, bonus 150,000-700,000

Not long ago, when financial markets were riding high and there seemed to be a major IPO or corporate takeover every other day, corporate financiers were the city's real movers and shakers.

In essence the brains behind much of the &quotgreed" that fuels the markets in good times, corporate financiers have less to do these days. The volume of global M&A in all sectors fell nearly 50% last year.

Financial Institutions Group (FIG) activity has not gone away, however. In particular there has been consolidation in the fund management industry, and mergers in the insurance industry are widely expected in future, partly as a result of its problems arising from the September 11th attacks.

Ben Hertzberg of the search firm TMP Worldwide says heads of FIG as a group have been relatively unscathed by the huge redundancies that have shaken corporate finance in recent months. This could reflect the fact they are few in number, with perhaps 50-60 in the City of London.

But there has been a brutal impact on total FIG packages. Because they are so large to start with, they are also an obvious target to be cut when times are bad.

&quotIn a good year, bonuses can be 100% (or more) of base salary, and in a bad one, nothing: that is the nature of the beast," Hertzberg said. &quotWhen the going gets bad, the high paid guys are the ones who pay the price."

Mergers among investment banks themselves could result in a reduction in the number of FIG teams in existence. However Dominic Duffy, a headhunter at Longbridge, feels that over the medium to long term, FIG teams have good reasons to be optimistic.

&quotBanks have been reluctant in many cases to let large numbers of their FIG teams go," he says. &quotIn the longer term (the next 5-6 years), increasing structural changes will drive the market forward. Hence there is incentive for the banks to hold on to teams or even in some cases to make good additional hires in anticipation of this as it is clearly not a dead market."

Chris Haynes of the headhunter AMGM agrees the market is still alive for FIG teams and says that last year bonuses on the whole held up reasonably well, though they were understandably down on 2000.

&quotThe market overview for 2002 is that there are a large number of mid-sized deals out there. However the real issue is completing these deals," he said.

AMGM believes that the emphasis will be increasingly on differences between banks, with senior FIG team members in a top-tier financial house looking at a basic salary of 150,000 that a bonus could take above the 1m mark while those in third tier houses can expect a salary of about 100,000 that the bonus could take to 400,000 .

Figures and commentary for How much am I worth? are provided by the following firms: Alexander Mann Global Markets, TMP Worldwide and Longbridge.