Green monster invocation of note:
Investment bankers are expected to receive increases of 10 percent to 20 percent in their year-end bonuses from a year ago. For a midlevel managing director in investment banking, that could mean total compensation of roughly $1.2 million to $1.8 million for the year. While such gains may not get them back to the go-go years of 1999 and 2000, it gets them much closer.
I was on Wall Street (in operations, not sales, dammit) in the days when Goldman Sachs was handing out million dollar bonuses to trading assistants. I said it then and I'll say it again: you would only get to pay me one million dollar bonus.
Anyway...
Optimism on Wall Street Over Size of Bonuses
By JENNY ANDERSON
After several years of being outshone by star traders, investment bankers stand to reap some of the biggest gains in Wall Street bonuses this year.
Bonus season on Wall Street is quickly approaching, the time of the year when investment banks determine how big their year-end bonus pools will be and how they will be divided.
Economically, the year-end bonus makes up most of a Wall Street professional's compensation. Socially, the bonus - and the real estate, art and NetJets shares purchased with it - determines who will be the year's Masters of the Universe. This season, despite a lackluster stock market, bonuses are forecast to be strong for a third consecutive year.
According to a new compensation survey to be released today, the biggest percentage winners for 2005 are expected to be investment bankers who focus on mergers and acquisitions; prime brokers, the professionals who manage a bank's relationship with hedge funds; and proprietary traders, the traders who use their firm's money to bet on the direction of certain market trends.
"It's been a solid year, especially in light of rising interest rates and energy prices, the impact of the hurricanes and geopolitical events like the London subway bombings," said Alan Roost, a vice president at Johnson Associates, the New York compensation consulting firm that conducted the survey.
