The traders who will see their bonuses jump - and bankers who won't
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Market Intelligence firm Tricumen suggest M&A bankers fared best in this year's bonus round, closely followed by commodities sales & trading professionals.
Tricumen estimated revenues per head by business area. As shown by the chart below, there were significant increases - 20% and 19% respectively - for M&A bankers and commodities traders, respectively. There were reductions in credit sales & trading revenue per person, as well as capital markets revenue per person.
M&A bankers saw their average productivity increase by 20% - generating $1.2m on average per employee across 2025, compared to $1m per person in 2024. And 2026 will probably be even bigger - Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said at UBS Financial Services Conference earlier this month that 2026 would be a record year for M&A.
Commodities traders, who enjoyed the second biggest increases in revenue per person, could credit their increase to the volatility in the gold & silver market, according to Tricumen, although traders as a whole did well in 2025.
Equities also performed well as a category, with professionals in equity derivatives and prime services increasing their revenue per head by 11% and 13%, respectively.
Credit traders, on average, can expect a 4% decrease in their bonuses, according to Tricumen. Based on revenues per head, debt and equity capital markets bankers could expect their bonuses to fall by 1.6% and 1.9%, respectively.
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