McLagan Data and Insights
for Traditional Asset Managers

Rewards Solutions

The world’s leading asset management organizations ─ including insurance firms, banks and more ─ rely on the McLagan compensation platform to meet their compensation benchmarking needs. With the most comprehensive compensation intelligence, market insights and deep industry expertise, your firm will have access to the tools necessary for building a total rewards strategy for 2021 and beyond with confidence.

Why McLagan

We help leading firms assess their pay level competitiveness, align compensation structures with business strategy, and achieve superior levels of people and business performance. By partnering with us, you'll benefit from the largest compensation database and so much more.

What you can expect: 

• Specific and Custom Compensation Data McLagan’s asset management database is the largest of its kind, with 300 participating firms in 2020. Our survey tools help you establish pay standards confidently across every reward element and on a job-by-job basis.
• Firm versus Market View With McLagan data, you’ll be empowered to assess the relative competitiveness of your employees’ salary, cash incentive, long-term award, and total compensation levels as compared to your peers, on an ‘all participant’ or ‘customized peer group’ basis.
• Industry Expertise and Trusted Resources We take a collaborative, tailored approach to each engagement and provide a full range of pay-related consulting services to support your pay strategies, including annual incentive plan design, long-term incentive / equity plan design, board and compensation committee advisory services, and so much more.
• Industry Leading Events and Insights We offer clients access to a range of events and resources to address the evolving world of work, such as client roundtables and webinars, thought leadership, and pulse surveys.
• Unmatched Global Financial Services Database Our surveys are globally consistent across the full financial services sectors. Using a universal job matching and leveling structure allows you to compare roles across McLagan’s full range of surveys, including asset management, wealth management and banking.
• Powerful Technology Platform Our compensation platform, McLaganLive, puts you in the driver’s seat as you explore compensation data, evaluate your firm’s market competitiveness, and make better data-driven decisions quickly and efficiently.

Participating Firms

With McLagan, you'll be joining some amazing firms. In 2020, our traditional asset management surveys spanned hundreds of participating firms of a broad range of sizes collectively representing over $58 trillion in AUM, including:

Compensation Data Elements

Power your annual compensation decisions and set pay with confidence with the most comprehensive compensation dataset. Our survey data facilitates analyses on a job-by-job basis across every reward element, including those specific to traditional and alternative asset management firms, such as:  

Job Library

We analyze pay levels for all key roles and job levels (e.g., from CEO through administrative assistant) across the traditional asset management industry. Explore our asset management survey database coverage below:

• Investments
• Sales & Marketing
• Infrastructure
• Fund Administration
• Retirement Plan Services
• Asset Consulting
• Technology

Market Intelligence and Consulting

Attract and retain top talent, control compensation expense budgets and ensure equitable pay practices with insights, analytics and advice. Our market practice studies provide an objective perspective and unique insight into human capital trends and performance alignment, making our market practice studies the perfect companion piece to compensation benchmarking. Explore offerings below:

Market Practice Studies: 

• Benefits Our asset management benefits study provides trends and insights into competitive costs and offerings for health and wellness benefits, gym memberships, flexible working arrangements, tuition assistance, and more.
• Diversity and Inclusion Developing a diverse workforce is an important element of your firm’s brand and a powerful differentiator for talent attraction and employee retention. Our studies help firms understand how their practices and workforce diversity compares to other leading asset management firms.
• Environmental, Social and Governance Understand how your ESG approach compares to other leading asset management firms. The study covers important trends in function structures, talent profile and how resources are allocated to build ESG capabilities.
• Executive Pay Our study analyzes executive pay as disclosed in the proxy statements of publicly traded asset management firms. The study covers the most significant drivers / determinants of CEO / executive level pay compared with firm performance, and how pay mix / long-term incentive plans vary by firm.
• External Wholesaler Pay & Productivity This study focuses on the linkage between pay and sales productivity for external wholesalers by examining individual wholesaler production levels and pay tiered by production bands, e.g., wholesalers with sales between $150 million to $300 million, and the associated cost of production. The study also includes competitive pay and sales positioning for 10 to 15 major territories.
• Institutional Sales This study provides competitive market information on structure, staffing, and pay practices in the Institutional Sales Business. The report includes detailed information on prevalent performance metrics, pay practices segmented by firm type / size of firm, and other trends covering changes to pay plans.
• Long-Term Incentive Plans This study investigates various types of long-term incentive plans in place for asset management firms, such as deferral versus ‘add-on’ LTI plans, and typical plan features, including plan coverage, participation criteria, award calculation, calculation methodologies, award vehicles (including fund unit deferral plans), vesting schedules, performance-based vesting and forfeiture provisions.
• Mutual Fund Wholesaling Business & Pay Practices Provides competitive market information on trends impacting the intermediary sales function and how firms are addressing structural shifts in the asset management industry. The report includes (1) information on organizational design and staffing levels and ratios and (2) short- and long-term incentive plan design trends for regional sales managers, external / field sales, internal sales, key accounts, and platform sales reps.
• Operational Risk IQ Addressing operational risk proactively is more important than ever. By identifying and quantifying operational risk factors at your firm relative to competitors, this study details how your responses may be rated in an institutional ODD evaluation and interpreted relative to others.
• Pay Levels and Hiring Practices for MBAs / BAs Our studies cover topics, including global trends and insights into the hiring practices, compensation packages, perquisites, and training programs for MBA and BA new hires, as well as pay levels for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year MBAs.
• Performance Intelligence / Pay and Business Benchmarking The U.S. Institute (USI) and European Institute (EI) partner with Casey Quirk and McLagan on this study to provide insights into trends in financial performance, compensation and benefits (C&B) spending, staffing, and productivity.
• Severance Practices & Turnover Trends Our severance study helps HR and business managers assess how their firm’s severance policies compare with other asset management firm. Our turnover trends study provides detailed data on turnover levels and trends in the asset management industry by function and level of seniority.
• Technology Practices This study provides insight into how asset management firms have evolved their technology and cybersecurity approach in the aftermath of 2020, including outsourcing and location strategy. As a participant, you will also gain insight into how cybersecurity professionals are being assessed and paid.

Compensation Consulting: 

• Annual Incentive Plan Design Our advice spans firm-wide and functional incentive plans, as well as investment staff annual incentive plans, including relative investment plans, fee / revenue sharing plans, partnership plans, and fund deferrals.
• Board and Compensation Committee Advisory We are a trusted partner, with advice and services spanning: executive pay reviews, executive pay plan design, compensation committee charters, board of director pay, and technical guidance related to pay regulations and the voting practices of proxy advisors, such as ISS.
• Carried Interest and Co-Investment Plan Design We help clients design market competitive carried interest and co-investment plans that reinforce individual firm’s investment and HR objectives.
• Competitive Pay Level Analysis We benchmark market pay levels to provide insights about your firm’s relative pay competitiveness by function, location, business unit, title, and/or pay element.
• Long-Term Incentive / Equity Plan Design We partner with asset managers to design tailored, specific plans, including equity and LTI; real or phantom equity and divisional LTI; partner and pre-partner points; carried interest, co-investment, and deferral.
• Pay Strategy Development We guide firms in aligning pay and performance, peer group development and targeted mix of pay positioning.
• Sales Compensation Program Design We assist with defining the design features of commission and/or bonus plans across institutional sales; and linking pay to gross and/or net sales through commission, structured incentive, or bonus plans for intermediary / wholesale sales.