Introduction
Since November 2022, New York City has required job advertisements to state a good-faith salary range, and the city's guidance on the salary transparency law says that salary means base pay only, excluding bonuses, commissions and stock. That boundary decides what can be known about private capital advisory (PCA) pay. The fixed part is now public: Lazard's New York advertisement for an analyst in its PCA secondaries team, live in September 2026, gave a base salary range of $120,000 to $125,000. The variable part, the discretionary bonus that moves most from year to year, is not published for PCA by any firm or survey, and figures traded on forums are anecdotes rather than data. What can be established is how the bonus is funded, who decides it, and why the answer barely depends on the group's name.
What Posted Salary Ranges Reveal About PCA Pay
A posted range is the employer's good-faith floor and ceiling for one open role on one date, so comparisons only hold within one firm at one time. Lazard offers a clean one: between July and September 2026 it advertised New York roles in its PCA group and in several industry coverage groups at the same three corporate titles, and the bands match title for title.
| Title | PCA posting | Industry-group postings | Posted base range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analyst | Secondaries | Financial institutions; Technology | $120,000 to $125,000 |
| Associate | Secondaries; fundraising transaction management | Industrials; Power, Energy and Infrastructure | $185,000 to $250,000 |
| Vice president | Real Assets | Power, Energy and Infrastructure; Chemicals | $250,000 to $275,000 |
Base pay at Lazard follows title, not the product a team sells. Each advertisement adds that base salary is one component of a package that may include incentive compensation, and that experience moves an offer within the band. The analyst band sits above the level large US banks moved to in 2021, when Goldman Sachs lifted first-year analyst base pay from $85,000 to $110,000 after JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and others had raised theirs.
Lazard's banking advertisements in this period stop at vice president, and no firm discloses PCA pay for directors or managing directors (MDs). Above vice president, the pay structure matters more than any single number.
How a Secondaries Success Fee Reaches the Bonus Pool
A success fee on a limited partner (LP) portfolio sale or a continuation vehicle is paid to the firm, not to the team that ran the process. It becomes part of net revenues, and the firm decides how much of total revenue to spend on people, a share listed advisory firms report every quarter.
- Compensation Ratio
Compensation and benefits expense divided by net revenues. Listed advisory firms report it under US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and usually on an adjusted basis that excludes items they treat as non-recurring. It measures the share of revenue paid to employees across the whole firm, not the pay of any group or individual.
Four listed firms with large PCA franchises report similar budgets, and none isolates a group:
| Firm | Fiscal year | Adjusted compensation ratio | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evercore | 2025 | 64.2% | Whole firm |
| Lazard | 2025 | 65.5% | Financial Advisory and Asset Management together |
| PJT Partners | 2025 | 67.1% | Whole firm, including PJT Park Hill |
| Houlihan Lokey | Year to March 31, 2026 | 61.5% | Whole firm |
The pool grows with firm revenue: Evercore's full-year 2025 results attribute most of the rise in compensation expense to a higher incentive compensation accrual and higher base salaries, in a year when its Private Capital Advisory and Private Funds Group businesses each had record revenue. And the ratio is a firm-wide budget: none of these firms reports a separate figure for PCA. The restructuring guide's comparison of pay at PJT, Evercore, Houlihan Lokey, Lazard and Moelis looks at several of the same firms from another group's seat.
How the pool is divided is a judgment, not a formula. PJT Partners' 2025 annual report states that its compensation is not formulaic and includes no individual revenue pay-outs, and that for a broad group of employees the discretionary bonus typically includes company stock. Why banking pay leans so heavily on the variable part is covered in why investment banking bonuses are so high.
When PCA Revenue Is Booked
Timing decides which year's pool a mandate supports. A secondaries success fee generally falls due at closing, so a sale that slips from December into January moves its revenue into the next year, one reason for the year-end push described in PCA hours and deal cadence. Placement fees differ: PJT recognizes them when investors subscribe or the fund closes, while the client pays over several years, as how PCA firms make money explains. Since compensation ratios are measured against recognized revenue, placement revenue counts in the year investors commit, not the years the cash arrives.
Pay by Level, and Against M&A and Sponsors Coverage
The ladder is the standard banking one: analyst, associate, vice president (VP), director or principal, and MD. Junior pay is a title-based salary plus a bonus set at year-end reviews. PJT says its pay and promotion decisions reward commercial contribution and commitment to the firm's values, and part of a senior banker's bonus arrives later.
- Deferred Compensation
The portion of a year's bonus paid in restricted stock units (RSUs) or deferred cash that vests over later years instead of being paid at year-end. Unvested awards are generally forfeited on departure, subject to each plan's terms, which is why they shape the economics of a lateral move.
Evercore's 2025 release shows the mechanism at scale: during 2025 it granted certain employees 1.6 million restricted stock units in conjunction with their 2024 bonus awards, plus $83.0 million of deferred cash awards. Neither Evercore nor PJT publishes the level at which deferral begins.
Compared With M&A and Sponsors Coverage
Within one firm, PCA, industry M&A and financial sponsors coverage share the same review calendar and the same firm-wide pool, and Lazard's advertisements show identical salary bands for PCA and industry groups. Differences in total pay therefore come from the firm, the level, the year, and how a group performed within the firm's discretion, not from the product label; the bank-wide pay structure by level is set out in the investment banking salary and bonus guide.
The year also moves the pool. Johnson Associates' August 2026 projections put 2026 incentive funding at banks up 15% to 20% for advisory, 20% to 30% or more for equity underwriting and 5% to 10% for debt underwriting, measured on a same-store, same-headcount basis. The consultancy does not isolate PCA, whose mandates sit inside advisory.
Because the structure is shared, pay rarely separates PCA from its neighbours; the work and the exits do.
London and the End of the Bonus Cap
In London the relevant rule change sits on the variable side. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) removed the cap on the ratio of variable to fixed pay for material risk takers at banks, building societies and PRA-designated investment firms with effect from 31 October 2023, arguing that the cap had pushed up fixed pay. The category centres on senior roles and high earners, and deferral, malus and clawback rules still apply to it.
Against the Buy Side: Secondaries Funds
Anyone weighing a move to a secondaries fund can read the direction of travel for 2026 in Johnson Associates' same August 2026 projections: incentives up 5% to 10% at secondaries firms, a third to a half of the rise projected for bank advisory. These are changes from 2025, not pay levels.
That exclusion marks where the comparison changes currency. Inside a bank, PCA pay is salary, a discretionary bonus and, higher up, deferred stock, all funded by fees booked in the year; on the buy side, part of the reward can arrive as carried interest tied to returns realized years later. Weighing the two is a question about exits, taken up in exit opportunities from PCA.
