Salary survey: Top fund managers' pay slumps
Heads of fund management operations in the UK have had their bonuses slashed by over two-thirds from a year ago as markets have slumped, according to figures from the Monks Partnership.
The pay consultancy found that although salaries for fund management chiefs stayed flat, their bonuses plummeted from 94% of their base salary to 29%.
The average salary for fund management heads is 150,000 (€226,208), Monks said in its latest quarterly survey. This means the reduction in bonuses made them nearly 98,000 worse off than a year ago.
The median salary for all fund managers, regardless of seniority or speciality, rose from 72,000 a year ago to 75,000 in the February survey, but the median bonus as a percentage of salary fell from 28% to 23%.
Bonuses for heads of equity desks marginally increased according to the survey, which covered small and medium-sized institutions.
Headhunters said this could reflect firms' eagerness to hang on to top talent. It could also reflect the timing of the survey, which looks at cash bonus payments made in the past 12 months and may not fully factor in the latest bonus round.
Investment firms have been looking at different ways to reduce their wage bills as they enter the fourth successive year of the bear market.
Senior executives at F&C Management, for example, have agreed to take cuts in salary of up to 10 per cent in exchange for equity in the fund manager.
Many firms have also tried to restructure their operations and reduce headcount, although the culls have yet to become as dramatic as those at investment banks.
Headhunters at Shepherd Little Asset Management said fund manager salary increases were running at about 3% at the moment, with bonuses dipping across the board.
Opinions differed among recruitment consultants on the job market in marketing and communications roles.
Shepherd Little said budgets in marketing and communications had been cut and headcount reduced. But Steve Meredith, a partner at Meredith Brown Associates, said he was aware of recruitment mandates for marketing positions, particularly on the request for proposal and investment writing side.
He said the only area where he had seen significant cutbacks was in client services.
Monks' UK survey was an interesting contrast with a report last month by remuneration specialists Bucks Consultants, which showed US mutual fund managers were still winning increases in pay despite falls in profits and years of underperformance.
Senior managers at large firms in the US were receiving an average of $750,000 (460,000) - the same as at the top of the market, according to Buck. Star equity portfolio managers could pull in more than $2m a year.
