Compensation levels for investment professionals will be flat to modestly higher for 2011 compared with 2010, a new study forecasts.

The report, released jointly by Greenwich Associates and Johnson Associates, says that within traditional asset management organizations, compensation for 2011 is projected to be flat from 2010 levels, to 5% lower, for equity professionals; and flat, to 5% higher, in fixed income.

Within hedge funds, year-end compensation is expected to vary widely based on company performance for both equity and fixed-income professionals, with some down and others flat or up versus 2010.

“These expectations are bullish compared with industry projections for trading and investment banking professionals in investment and commercial banks, for which average total incentives are projected by industry analysts to fall as much as 30% or more,” says Francine McKenzie, managing director at Johnson Associates.

Greenwich Associates’ director of institutional marketing, Jennifer Litwin, says, “In fixed income, compensation last year rose in step with the increased demand for talent and a spike in employee turnover. Average total compensation for fixed-income professionals working for traditional asset management organizations increased by roughly 10% from 2009 to 2010 and jumped 18% for fixed-income investment professionals at hedge funds. The story was much different in equities, where average total compensation dropped 13% from 2009 to 2010 at traditional asset management firms and declined by 10% at hedge funds.”

The survey also found that the gap in pay between fixed-income professionals working for hedge funds and those employed by traditional asset management organizations widened slightly last year, while compensation in equities remained close to parity between the two groups.

It reports that, in 2009, hedge fund fixed-income professionals earned 2.25 times the amount made by their counterparts at traditional organizations. In 2010 that ratio increased to 2.4 times, with average annual compensation for hedge fund fixed-income professionals increasing to the neighborhood of US$1 million, as compared to US$420,000 at traditional firms.

Compensation for hedge fund equity professionals averaged about US$700,000 in 2010, compared to the US$730,000 average for equity professionals at traditional asset management firms.

It also notes that, while asset management compensation structures are shifting away from bonuses in favour of annual salaries, the trend is less pronounced on the buy-side than it is among sell-side firms that have come under much greater pressure from regulators.

In 2010, bonuses accounted for approximately 65% of cash compensation among equity portfolio managers and 55-60% among equity analysts and directors of research, with the remainder in salary. For fixed-income portfolio managers, salary makes up a larger portion of cash compensation. Bonuses for fixed-income professionals last year ranged from approximately 55% for traders and portfolio managers to roughly 75-80% for head traders, it says.