Compensation is an extremely sensitive subject at any level within an organization. Whether determining pay levels for individuals that are in line with peer/market practices or designing an incentive arrangement that drives behavior, aligns with the key goals of the organization, and aids in retention, our team has extensive experience working with executives, owners, and Boards on all compensation matters.
Our focus on privately held organizations within the commercial real estate space gives us unique insights into not only best and leading practices but why certain concepts/ideas work well and why others may fall flat depending on the strategy and internal dynamic of the organization. Our ability to marry internal considerations with external best practices through case studies and trends allows us to help clients achieve optimal results in addressing one of the most challenging aspects of an organization.
While all of our engagements are customized to suit the needs of each client, many of our assignments include advising on some or all of the following topics:
Compensation levels
Benchmark compensation levels for all compensation components vis-à-vis a custom peer group. Analyses focus on companies similar in terms of strategy, size, asset class, geography, and ownership, and are unique to each position based on incumbents with similar roles/responsibilities (e.g., not simply a title matching exercise).
Carried interest/promote structures
Overall approach to sharing carried interest (e.g., direct allocations vs. indirectly sharing through incentive pools), “house” vs. “management” or senior partner vs. junior partners, award timing, vesting, treatment of awards upon termination, and co-investment arrangements (use of requirements, terms, etc.).
Real/synthetic enterprise equity
Types of equity arrangements, situations in which they typically exist, how awards are acquired (granted vs. purchased), types of awards (cash-flow vs. enterprise value, underlying enterprise value vs. growth awards), timing, frequency, use of loans, valuation approaches, terms/conditions.
Annual bonus plans
Overall approach to funding (aggregate pools and individual targets), performance metrics, range of outcomes, etc.
Non-carry long-term incentive arrangements
Types of award structures, performance metrics, performance period, award timing and payout, eligibility, termination treatment, etc.
Key contact
Research + insights
Organizations we serve:
- Global, national, and regional investment managers
- Multi-investment strategy organizations
- Single-asset class
- Multi-asset class
- Stabilized
- Developers
- Owners
- Operators
- Family/family-office owned
- Start-up
- Growth mode
- Single-investment strategy organizations
- Independently owned
- Institutionally owned