Although the war for talent is raging, current market headwinds are likely to halt the advance of soaring salaries.
Companies struggling with current market turmoil will have to stop offering overblown salaries to retain top managers despite the ongoing war for talent, Blackrock’s global head of alternative investors Edwin Conway said as reported by «Private Equity News» (behind paywall).
«This continuous upward bounding leap after leap [in pay] is probably game over. (...) They’ve hit their ceiling because you're seeing firms recognizing that their year-end compensation is not at all what they had anticipated,» Conway is quoted in the report.
Blackrock's stance on pay could have consequences for Credit Suisse and UBS given the asset manager is a significant shareholder in both banks.
Exorbitant Wages
Credit Suisse, of which Blackrock holds 4.1 percent, upped the cash portion of its short-term bonuses for senior staff this year, while in 2021 it resorted to dishing out a $10,000 «lifestyle bonus» to keep young talent from jumping ship.
CEO of Whitney Partners Gary Goldstein, also expects exorbitant Wall Street salaries to come down soon. «People were making several multiples than what they were used to for 2021,» the headhunter told finews.com in a recent interview. «Now I think banks will want to get back to more normal pay levels,» he added.
UBS and Credit Suisse will likely follow their Wall Street counterparts, seeing as «by definition, Swiss institutions will import this trend if they have set American institutions as peers,» Goldstein said.
