By Sonia Talati

How much do hedge-fund professionals earn? Less than you suspect. SumZero is an Internet community of fund professionals working for firms with an average of $4.1 billion in assets under management. We asked SumZero to compile total compensation data from their pool of 9,100 hedge-fund professionals working at funds with an average of $2.6 billion under management. Those with executive titles, a total of 3,250 respondents, earned a median of $322,500 annually in total compensation, which includes salary, bonuses, and any deferred compensation.

That’s less than we expected. The lowest pay package came to zero, probably because the executive decided to forego all compensation. The highest was $2.75 million. SumZero’s membership is skewed toward smaller hedge funds, which might explain the lower-than-expected compensation. Still, the stats suggest that three years of poor hedge-fund results, coupled with hard investor demands to cut the traditional 2/20 fee, have indeed reduced salaries at hedge funds. READ MORE