Private credit salaries
Getty Images/Getty Images
Private credit is booming, which has resulted in a hiring spree.Business Insider looked at visa data and job listings to see what firms are paying.See private-credit base salaries across 16 firms, from Blackstone to Apollo.
Given the regional banking crisis, pesky high interest rates, and investors’ incessant search for returns, the rise of private credit was hardly surprising.
Even with President Trump vowing to push for lower interest rates and ease up on bank regulation, the nonbank lending party is widely predicted to continue. While the biggest beneficiaries of the boom are the executives who run these funds and their investors, it’s also kicking off a talent war in the formerly sleepy world of credit, as Business Insider has previously reported.
To get a better idea of what professionals in the field are getting paid, Business Insider collected publicly available pay data for 16 companies known for their nonbank lending business, including Apollo, Blackstone, and even Goldman Sachs.
BI analyzed data from the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s most recent 12 months of H1-B visa filings, a program that allows American companies to hire foreign workers for specialized roles. We also looked at job postings as of January 18 for the credit arms of asset managers like Apollo and Blackstone as well as private-credit firms like Blue Owl and Silver Point.
The visa data represents salaries for actual workers, while the job postings show what companies may be willing to pay for open positions. The visa results are based on searches for keywords commonly used in private-credit hiring, including “credit,” “asset-backed,” and “direct-lending,” and may not represent a complete picture of private-credit hiring at the firms listed.
The companies represented here either did not respond to a request for clarification or declined to comment.
While most lending professionals can also expect to be paid an annual bonus, which can double their pay, the data listed here is limited to salaries only.
Unlike private equity, which relies heavily on carried interest at the senior levels, private credit bonuses can take many forms, from cash to carried interest to shadow equity, says Robin Judson, founder of recruiting firm Robin Judson Partners.
“It’s broader than private equity: there are no senior private equity jobs that I am aware of where carry isn’t part of the compensation,” Judson said. “In private credit, you can have situations where there’s no carry, or the carry is a smaller portion of the overall package than it would be in private equity.”
Check out the salaries for private-credit roles, from associate to MD, at 16 top nonbank lenders:
