Managers and Professionals - are your Salaries above the Median?

I guess what many people don't know is that most AVP/VPs in investment banks are not managers and thus fairly junior (late 20s to early 30s). Usually only the Directors and MDs are managers.

Btw, the salary range you describe is only base salary. Bulge bracket banks usually pay at least 2X (i.e. 1 year bonus), sometimes 3X, 4X in good years. IB'ers work for bonus. If there is no bonus, they'd jump to private equity or hedge funds.

So the annual comp of a 30-year old VP is more realistically $300k-900k. And a 27-year old AVP would make $200k-400k.

How many of such high earners and how many such bulge bracket banks are there in Singapore? According to Iras (see this appendix) and this Salary.sg article at http://www.salary.sg/2008/more-in-million-dollar-club/ , there are only 2,751 people who earned more than $1m last year.

It is not as easy as what has been written here.

Not everyone earns more than 120k per year. There are some in the front line desks, depts in banks that get below 100k per year.

It is only the minority, i.e the elites, high flyers, who get paid astronomical sums. And according to IRAs, its seems logically so.

IBs, Traders, Sales, Private Bankers, Wealth Managers, all have one thing in common. They work very long hours and sometimes easily sleep less than 5 hours a day. No time for real socialising or family bonds. It is not the ideal job for everyone. And sometimes the monetary lure cannot compensate for the loss of quality time and life.

And, not many of these ppl can survive at the same job well into their 40s or 50s. Remember that it is a pyramidal hierachy. So only the "best" of the best goes up. What happens to the rest? It like the soccer stars in Premier League, big bucks over a short career and sometimes really short.

Like those who had just joined the banking in 07/08, its only a handful who managed to enjoy the high bonuses n payouts. So please do not take everytime verbatim n prima facie..

i meant everything i/o everytime..

adiemuso: you're right, of course. i was referring to IB front office in bulge brackets (e.g. GS, MS, maybe CS and DB). i have no idea what the comp structure is like elsewhere.

for your infomation, long gone are the days of huge payouts. time has since changed.

besides, its only the tier 1 (ang mo banks). try asking for a 6 digit payout in a 2nd tier, local or regional name. esp if you are only 27/28..

but basically, the package is usually better off in front than mid and back...of cos the best is in mgmt.

adiemuso and Anonymous

thanks for adding on more detail to more post,

anonymous> you are right about the bonus portion, what i stated was mainly for base salaries only.

adiemuso> you are also right, not everyone in front office can get market rate. due to many other factors like (hiring manager's persuading skills or bullying skills) they can "make" a candidate take a less than market rate, cos they junior ones are desparate to get in!

and typically each bank has only about sales + trading 10 desk (on average, i plucked the no. out of the air, some may have more many will have less)

and *maybe* every year only half will take in juniors.

Thats probably like 60 junior positions in singapore? dont forget you compete with juniors that may get posted over from HK and etc as well!