Target Bonus

The total compensation from I-bank includes base salary + bonus. Is target bonus almost guaranteed or not?

I don’t work in ibanking but in IM, Bonus is usually given as a range from a rather small number to a rather large number. You would usually fall somewhere in the middle toward the top end of the range provided it was an ok year. But the range isn’t set in stone. Top performers can earn more in a good year. PMs and analysts can miss out on 50-75% of their bonus (performance related) if they aren’t in the top two quartiles of performance relative to other firm’s comparable strategies. Between 25% and 50% is usually subjective depending if you’re a PM/Analyst or trader (smaller proportion is subjective the higher up you are).

Target bonus is very far from guaranteed. Its only guaranteed if you have a contract that guarantees it, in which case its not a target anymore. If all goes well, its fair to assume that you should be in the ballpark of the tgt bonus. If its a year like the last several quarters for most shops, comp will come in shy of the target (unless your target bonus somehow takes this into account, I suppose).

umm…what exactly does “almost guaranteed” mean?