Do you work in investment banking in Singapore? Do you want to find out whether you’re underpaid or overpaid in comparison to your peers ahead of a possible job move?
We’ve asked investment banking headhunters to tell us minimum and maximum base salaries from analyst to MD-level in Singapore, based on their recent discussions with banks and candidates. We’ve then averaged out the high and low pay points to produce the table below – and we’ve done the same for bonus ranges.
Source: Charterhouse, Kerry Consulting, Links International, Nastrac Group
For analyst and associate jobs the above minimum and maximum levels are largely based on years of experience – first-year analysts earn about S$75k, while their third-year counterparts are paid closer to S$133k, for example. Unlike in Hong Kong, where the surging mainland market is forcing banks to outbid each other to hire Mandarin-speaking juniors, pay rates for young bankers in Singapore don’t vary much between firms.
Mid to senior-level investment bankers in Singapore are best placed to negotiate salaries at the upper end of their respective ranges based on their own performance. “It’s at the VP and director level where there’s some shortage of talent in Singapore partly because quite a number of people have moved to the buy-side or completely left the industry,” says Gary Lai, managing director, Southeast Asia, at recruiters Charterhouse.
Overall, however, a dearth of deal-flow and slow hiring levels mean investment banking salaries aren’t expected to rise significantly in Singapore for the remainder of this year, say headhunters. This year mergers involving Southeast Asian companies have fallen 45% to their lowest level since 2009 and there have been no initial public offerings in Singapore larger than US$25m, according to Bloomberg figures.
It’s now rare even for MDs to pocket bonuses in excess of their base salaries – top performers are lucky to receive 85%. “Bonuses have come down significantly over the past three years in Singapore, while base pay has more or less remained at similar levels,” says Farida Charania, Asia Pacific CEO of search firm Nastrac Group.