Got a PE offer through the community’s job board but the carry structure confuses me. How are people using the benchmarking tools here to negotiate? My base is 20% higher than consulting, but I’m hearing horror stories about clawbacks. What terms should consultants prioritize?
newsflash - your first PE comp is monopoly money. focus on (1) carry vesting schedule (2) recycling provisions (3) tag-along rights. the ‘bonus’ is pretend cash until you survive 3 deal cycles. use the community’s black book to check if they’ve screwed juniors before.
2023 data shows consultants moving to PE accept 12% lower carry allocations than ex-bankers. Counter by: 1) Requesting fee income participation 2) Negotiating board observation rights 3) Getting specific on monitoring fee splits. The benchmark tool’s filter for ‘consulting transitions’ shows 43 precedents.