McLagan is the leading provider of compensation consulting services and pay for performance data for asset management firms, including advisory firms and mutual fund companies.
Our industry focus, ongoing client work, and proprietary study data allow us to frame each consulting project within a broad business context and a keen understanding of competitive issues and practices. While the scope of our consulting work varies, we are skilled at working with asset management firms to:
- Provide pay advisory services to senior management and their board of directors.
- Benchmark competitive pay levels and practices and related human resource issues.
- Design annual, long-term and sales incentive plans.
The quality of our work is underscored by the number and prominence of our clients. For example, in the U.S., we work with 49 of the top 50 asset management firms and 27 of the top 30 hedge funds. In the U.K., we work with 48 of the top 50 asset management firms.
Our asset management business is global in scope, with staff located in the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia and Australia.
We provide asset management firms with three types of consulting assistance:
Benchmarking, with examples of recent projects including:
- Identifying competitive portfolio manager incentive plan approaches for a leading institutional manager.
- Benchmarking competitive wholesaler pay approaches (e.g., bp payout rates, linkages to net sales) for a leading mutual fund company.
- Identifying best practices in the Compensation Committee Charters of publicly traded US asset management firms.
Incentive plan design assistance, with examples of recent projects including:
- Helped a multi-boutique asset management firm design an annual and long-term incentive plan for holding company staff.
- Designed new revenue sharing plans for a top-ten, global asset management firm.
- Assisted a leading mutual fund company in designing a mutual fund deferral plan.
- Designed a plan for broadening equity ownership in a small investment management firm.
- Designed new wholesaler pay plans for a major mutual fund company.
- Designed new institutional sales and relationship manager pay plans for a large global asset management company.
Pay advisory services, which include:
- Providing insight about current business and pay practices to the head of distribution at a major asset management firm.
- Helping the CEO of a leading mutual fund company assess cash incentive plan alternatives.
- Providing year-end pay trend assistance to C-level executives at over 40 leading asset management firms.
- Serving as the Board Compensation Consultant for several publicly traded asset management firms.
McLagan’s annual performance benchmarking studies help our clients better understand and, in turn, reinforce the linkage between firm and/or individual performance and pay. Examples of our asset management performance benchmarking studies include:
Performance Intelligence
Provides insights about asset management firm business results, compensation / incentive payout rates, and staffing levels. Conducted in partnership with Institutional Investor and Casey Quirk. Over 100 firms participate.
Quarterly Financial Benchmarks
A deep dive into the quarterly financial disclosures of over 20 publicly-disclosed asset management firms.
Portfolio Manager Performance and Pay
Through single and multi-regression analysis, this Study defines the linkage between “performance” (defined in terms of AUM, revenues, relative investment performance, cash flows, etc.) and pay.
Mutual Fund Wholesaler Performance and Pay
Defines production levels and cost of production/effective payout rates for mutual fund wholesalers.
