Is this age of say-on-pay it’s not often you’ll hear a seven-figure salary described as “fair”. But that’s exactly how a fifth of respondents put it when answering a poll on our sister website Private Equity News. There’s one man out there, however, who loves his industry so much that he’d gladly work in it for free.

More than a third, 38%, of private equity executives responding to an online poll on penews.com said that a salary of between $200,000 and $750,000 was a fair one and a further 23% said a fair salary was in the "millions of dollars". A third, 33%, said under $200,000 was fair and only 5% said executives should not earn more than the national average salary of $40,000.