I’m having a hard time with finding hard numbers on this, so I thought I would ask AF. I work at a fairly large, private, multi-family office (~ US $5 billion AUM) in their investments group. My responsibilities include managing the client fixed income portfolios (US $200 million, a very very small portion of the overall AUM of the firm), equity manager due dilligence, and performance reporting. I also put together a quarterly presentation to our firm’s investment committee and have written a whitepaper that my firm uses for its limited marketing purposes (direct to existing clients and referral sources). I just started at this firm about a year ago. I’m at $120K base, ~15% bonus, and some good benefits (10% contribution to 401K, phantom stock, and healthcare).
Background:
Started at an RIA as a bond trader ($70K base) in 2010. Rapidly moved into an associate role in 2011 ($90K base), and left for a PM position at a competiting RIA ($115K base) in 2013. The culture at the most recent RIA (my former employer) was horrible so I jumped ship in 10 months to my current employer. I made the mistake of explaining the culture during my interview with my current employer, so they were well aware that I was eager to make a move. I bring this up because I jumped into my current role with no increase in base ($115K). My most recent performance review was stellar, and I got a 4% bump to current comp. I am taking CFA Level III in June, have Master in Finance from top 50 school (not Ivy), and CFP, Culture here is good, work 10 hr days, no weekends.
Do you think this is a fair salary given background, responsibility, etc.? I feel like my issue with not making the move over with a raise has set me back comp wise, and I am considering asking for a raise, especially if I pass L3 this year. I’m 31 years old, wife + 1 kid. Any help/guidance/opinions are much appreciated.
Did you check Glassdoor? Without comps I’d say 120 base, 15% bonus, 10% match with 50 hours a week isn’t a bad gig in Atlanta. But I’m also not super familiar with the cost of living there
Thanks for your feedback. Cost of living is pretty reasonable in Atlanta. I looked at Glassdoor but it was hard to find a direct comp based, in part, on “title” versus what I’m doing day to day and relative to the type/size of firm I work at.
What you may want to do instead of Title is look up by firm. That’s what I do when looking at jobs with non-uniform titles. I look at the firm, then go to the listing of their jobs. Find what they call it, and write it in Excel. Then go to the next firm. That’s probably the ‘best’ way
Thanks for the tip on Glassdoor comps, good idea for sure. And you are right, a portion of my role is definitely similar to an operations role (performance reporting), while the other primary portion is buy-side fixed income port management (IG corps and munis). I didn’t include this in the original post, but about 20% of my time is client facing, primarily during annual investment reviews. Thanks again to everyone for your help/replies!
Only one of those responsibilities could be considered operations, and since he’s in a family office environment, I’d suspect most client facing employees touch performance and attribution. Don’t act like he’s reconciling trades in the basement…
I think you are doing ok there all things considered. Work hard this year and then if next year’s review is as good as this year’s, look for a bigger bump in base. $10k per annum increments from here would be nice as you build experience and potentially take on greater levels of responsibility.
Congrats on making the move by the way. Takes some guts to jump ship less than a year in but if the fit isn’t right you are best to get out early. This new position sounds interesting with good potential for progression.
Haha, you let me know when and I’ll bring a bag full of one’s. Pretty sure my wife doesn’t read this forum. And if she does, then I’ll probably have a good reason to go anyway!
I guess I’m the only one here that thinks your comp seems a bit low. Clarification needed -
How many people work at the family office?
If I’m understanding your role correctly, you’re basically the fixed income PM and (are you?) the head of equity due diligence? That other stuff is fluff most PM/research analysts have to do at large RIAs and family offices.
Think of it this way, if you ran a $200mm RIA, even after overhead like rent and paying a couple employees, you’d be pulling down at least three times as much. Of course, that assumes you own the place so that’s not quite apples to apples.
Still, if you’re a decision maker (actually doing all the fixed income work, making the decisions on the equity side) I’d say you should be more in the $180-220k range.
If you’re more of a research analyst, you’re right in-line with where I’d think you’d be.
Thanks for your input. To answer your questions, there are 20 people working at my firm, of which 7 are in Investments.
Yes, I have full discretion on the duration, credit, maturity targets for the client portfolios. Since we are a small firm, by headcount, I am essentially the trader and PM (i.e. I source all buys/sells AND manage the portfolio decisions). Luckily our operations group takes care of all trade settlement and related tasks.
I am very thankful for everyone’s reply and input. Initially, I had a figure of $150K base in my head simply based on my responsibilities. However, I only have 5 years of direct industry experience and no CFA (yet). So given the details in my original post, I really had no firm grasp of where I should stand comp wise. Thus, hearing your input, and the input of others on this forum, has been very helpful.