Salary survey: Corporate finance salaries rise at smaller houses

Salaries of corporate finance staff at small and medium-sized insititutions rose in the year to August 2002 in spite of the poor economic climate, according to a pay survey by the The Monks Partnership.

Headhunters said the trend could reflect an increase in the hiring of staff made redundant by larger investment banks, who could command a premium above the salaries normally paid by the smaller houses.

Corporate finance directors saw median base pay jump to 130,000 (€204,0000), up 15,000 from the year before, the survey by the pay consultancy showed.

Their bonus last year was 85% of salary, the same as the year before. Bonuses rose in some other corporate finance positions. But headhunters said bonuses were likely to fall on average this year, though perhaps by a smaller percentage than at larger banks.

Figures from Thomson Financial show that announced European mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals totalled $393 in the first nine months of 2002, down nearly 30% from the same period last year.

The M&A sector was one of the first to suffer job cuts when the economic downturn began to take shape in 2000. It might also be one of the first sectors to bottom out, headhunters say.

In the meantime the downturn is allowing smaller firms to go after certain bankers they would not have even thought about approaching a couple years ago according to Krista Parker, a recruitment consultant at Badenoch & Clark.

All the corporate finance positions surveyed by Monks showed rises in overall remuneration. Assistant directors recorded a rise of just 3,000 in median base pay to 84,000, but enjoyed a large jump in bonus to 69% of salary.

Lower down the scale, corporate finance executives doubled their bonuses last year from 30% to 60% of base pay, which remained steady at 40,000.