As MiFID II looms and investment banks look to make some difficult decisions about the size of their research teams, it pays to be working for a bank where your area of expertise is central to the organisation you work for – even if that means accepting a smaller job title.

In the case of John Clemmow, a macro strategist and salesman who has held senior roles at UBS, Barclays and Investec over the last 15 years, that landing spot is Macquarie.

Clemmow is a commodities specialist who has just taken a job at the Australian bank known for its focus on commodities. However, after more than ten years as a managing director – first at UBS and then, from October 2011 until February this year, at Barclays – he has just joined Macquarie as an associate director in macro research.

Analysts in banks are facing tough times as MiFID II regulation requires them to charge for research separately from other trading costs. Much of the focus has been on equities, but fixed income researchers and strategies are also likely to be hit.

As we pointed out yesterday, two senior strategists within Oleg Melentyev, Deutsche’s head of U.S. credit strategy, and Daniel Sorid, a director in its U.S. credit strategy business, departed shortly after it was revealed that Deutsche plans to slash the cost of its fixed income research.

Clemmow started out in equity research in 1988 after spending nearly seven years working for a South African goldmine. He graduated from the University of Nottingham with a degree in Mining Engineering. According to his LinkedIn profile, he also held summer jobs while studying as a ‘chicken killer’ at Thornhill Chicken Packers and as a ‘sewer operative’.

Importantly, he’s maintained a sense of humour. His LI profile has the missive “Specialties: Chicken Killing, the importance of wearing natural fibres in explosive situations, Africa, advanced childrearing.”

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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““

So you want to work for a top team in a top investment bank? That’s nice: good for you. Except, is the team you’re joining really top in its sector? Just because Goldman Sachs is one of the top investment banking fee earners in EMEA, is its healthcare team really so special? Although Credit Suisse ranks among the biggest equity traders in the U.S., is its American algorithmic business really up to scratch?

To help you establish the best home for your talents right now, we’ve assembled detailed information on the top teams in the six biggest investment banking sectors by division and region and presented them (courtesy of Dealogic) in the tables below. We’ve also added in information from Greenwich Associates on the best banks in sales and trading by region.

As the information below reflects, top banks are not always what they seem. Morgan Stanley, for example, is strong in most major sectors of European ECM – but not industrials; Jefferies ranks outside the top three in most U.S. M&A sectors, but is big in energy and natural resources; Credit Suisse is a nothing in rates trading, but huge in securitization. Look before you leap.

Even if you join a team that’s making top revenues there’s a danger it will be constrained by low productivity across the division and you won’t get paid. If you’re looking for the most productive divisions by region, check the latest information from Tricumen, here. 

The top teams at the top banks in The City of London

Do you really need to work for a U.S. investment bank even in Europe? Not exactly: as the charts below show, Deutsche, UBS and HSBC all have their strengths if you choose your team carefully.

The top teams for equities trading in Europe:

Â

The top teams for fixed income trading in Europe (2016):

The top teams for equity capital markets (ECM) deals in EMEA by sector:

The top teams for debt capital markets (DCM) deals in EMEA by sector:

The top teams for M&A deals in EMEA by sector:

The top teams at the top banks on Wall Street

The big U.S. investment banks are unsurprisingly dominant in their home market, but this doesn’t mean you should discount smaller firms and Europeans. As the charts below show, Barclays and Credit Suisse especially have pockets of strength in the U.S. market and Deutsche is one of the leaders when it comes to helping finance firms raise money on the debt markets (FIG DCM).

The top banks for equity trading in the U.S. 

The top teams for fixed income trading in the U.S.:

The top teams for equity capital markets (ECM) deals in the U.S. by sector:

The top teams for debt capital markets (DCM) deals in the U.S. by sector:

The top teams for M&A deals on Wall Street by sector:

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Have a story or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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““

You’re one of the growing legions of private bankers based in Hong Kong – or even Singapore – tasked with managing the investment, family and entrepreneurial needs of  mainland Chinese millionaires and billionaires.

As private banks step up their efforts to win offshore business from wealthy people in China, how can you stand out from the competition and keep your clients happy?

Here are some tips for successfully schmoozing Chinese private clients.

1. Explain your exotic products

“In China financial products are mostly plain vanilla and easy to understand. Many private clients haven’t been exposed to derivatives and sophisticated structured products – let alone exotic ones,” says Liu San Li, an ex-Coutts private banker, now head of banking at search firm IGS Asia in Singapore. “So it’s important to illustrate these with simple examples and explanations. Base them on the typical products they already understand and build from there.”

2. Don’t be ostentatious

With Beijing’s anti-corruption drive in full swing, relationship managers (RMs) are advised not to make too big a show when entertaining clients. “Low profile meetings” and “closed-door wining and dining” are recommended – giving valuable gifts to your clients isn’t, says Jason Tan, a partner at search firm Being & Associates in Shanghai.

3. Don’t overestimate risk appetite

“Chinese clients are demanding in the return they want from investment products, primarily because of the double-digit return they often receive in their own businesses, which becomes a comparable expectation,” says Pathik Gupta, head of Asia Pacific Wealth Management at consultancy McLagan “But some RMs misinterpret this as an aggressive risk appetite. Some Chinese clients don’t understand their investment objectives clearly and lack the concept of risk-return. They may have less risk tolerance than they claim despite demanding high returns.”

4. Mange expectations

“RMs need to assess clients’ risk tolerance from different perspectives before advising them,” says Gupta. “In general, Chinese clients care about the gap between promise and outcome, so managing their expectations is critical for developing credibility and trust.”

5. Use social media

“Our research shows that Chinese private banking clients are determined to integrate their digital contacts into their wealth creation endeavours – much more so than rich people in Hong Kong and Singapore are,” says Gupta. “RMs should therefore use clients’ preferred social media platforms – like Weibo and Wechat – to enhance their professional image and keep their clients abreast of industry updates, supplementing face-to-face catch-ups.”

6. Talk about health

Gupta recommends that RMs share health-related topics with their clients on social media. “According to recent local research, the top concern of Chinese high-net-worth individuals is investment, followed by health. RMs should develop common health interests and share health-related articles. Talking about concepts like how different coloured food can help different parts of the body can get you strong buy-in from Chinese clients.”

7. Connect with their kids

“Putting a client’s children’s interests first will help you build the client experience. The ability to connect and earn the trust of the family is vital to success as a private banker,” says Tan from Being & Associates. “Clients tend to ask overseas bankers about the latest immigration and overseas education trends – that knowledge is definitely useful to start conversations,” adds Stephen He, a partner at Falcon Talent in Shanghai.

8. Be international

Younger members of rich families may well be Western educated – and they’ll expect you to have a similar international outlook. “The second and third generation of high-net-worth children are more exposed, so having cultural adaptability with an international outlook will better equip RMs when dealing with the young rich,” says Clarence Law, a Singapore-based business advisor in private banking.

9. But also understand regional differences

“Understand your clients’ origin – which part of China they come from,” says He from Falcon. “Northern China clients tend to be very different from Southern ones – they usually discuss business after a few rounds of white wine, for example.”

10. Be careful before you express an opinion

“In general, Chinese, especially older ones, place importance on ‘face’. Western or even other Asian clients are more straightforward in saying their opinions, while Chinese clients rarely say no and like positive conversations,” says Gupta from McLagan. “But instead of saying yes all the time, when RMs have different investment opinions from their clients, they need to build rapport, find a common ground, and then express their thoughts.”

11. Sugar-coat

And when you do reveal your true thoughts, make sure to use the right language. “Most Chinese have been brought up not to speak out their disagreements, in contrast to Hong Kong RMs who are used to freedom of speech,” says Liu from IGS Asia. “To avoid losing face, sugar-coat your words and avoid using words that blatantly imply you disagree. For example, you could say: ‘My opinion is a little different, please correct me if I’m wrong…’”.

12. Know the pecking order

“The order in which you address people if you meet clients at their businesses is more important in China than it is in Hong Kong and Singapore,” says Liu. “It’s very important to know the seniority of the people at the meeting and their importance in the client’s company. Know who to address first and how to address them. Any mistake that causes embarrassment to the top people in front of their subordinates can create a lot of displeasure.”

13. Face always matters

Even during casual dinner meetings, RMs need to be aware of giving face to Chinese clients. “If the client passes you food, you have to try to eat it even if it’s repulsive. It’s impolite to reject, it causes a great deal of lost face,” says Liu.

Follow @simonmortlock

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““

If you’re after a graduate job or summer internship at a global bank in Singapore or Hong Kong in 2018, you generally only have a few more weeks in which to apply.

As the deadline clock ticks down, we’ve compiled a list (based on both publicly announced dates and information provided by the banks) of application cut-offs for full-time analyst positions and internships at some of the leading global banks in Asia.

We’ll be updating the list as we get new information, so keep coming back.

BARCLAYS

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 30 November 2017

Recruiting for: markets

Hong Kong and Singapore internships

Deadline: 31 December 2017

Recruiting for: markets

Where to apply: Barclays’ APAC careers site

BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 29 September 2017

Recruiting for: global investment banking and capital markets, global corporate banking, global markets, global technology, global operations, corporate audit, global risk

Hong Kong and Singapore internships

Deadline: 27 October 2017

Recruiting for: global investment banking and capital markets, global corporate banking, global transaction services, global markets, global research, global technology, global operations, global human resources, corporate audit

Where to apply: BAML campus recruitment site

BNP PARIBAS

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 31 October 2017

Recruiting for: corporate coverage, global markets, informational technology and operations, investment banking, transaction banking (SG only)

Hong Kong and Singapore internships

Deadline: 30 November 2017

Recruiting for: global markets, informational technology and operations, investment banking, learning and development (SG only)

Where to apply: The bank’s APAC grad careers centre

CITIGROUP

Hong Kong full-time analyst programmes

Citi has already filled its full-time 2018 programme in Hong Kong with people who’ve completed 2017 summer internships. If you are interested in 2018 HK-based analyst jobs, please monitor the bank’s careers website for potential opportunities that might come up in early 2018.

Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 22 September 2017

Recruiting for: treasury and trade solutions, Citi commercial banking, consumer banking, international personal bank, technology

Hong Kong internships

Deadlines: 22 September 2017

Recruiting for: tbc (information requested)

Singapore internships

Deadline: 22 September 2017

Recruiting for: markets and securities services, investment banking, private bank, treasury and trade solutions, Citi commercial banking, consumer banking, international personal bank, technology

Where to apply: Citi’s university recruitment page

CREDIT SUISSE

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Positions (except private banking) have already been filled via intern conversions.

Hong Kong internships

Deadlines: 1 October 2017 for investment banking and capital markets; 9 November 2017 for other divisions

Recruiting for: global markets (sales, trading and research), investment banking and capital markets, technology

Singapore internships

Deadlines: 1 October 2017 for investment banking and capital markets; 9 November 2017 for other divisions

Recruiting for: investment banking and capital markets, technology, risk, private banking

Where to apply: Credit Suisse students and grads site

DEUTSCHE BANK

Hong Kong full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 8 October 2017

Recruiting for: across the board

Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 1 October 2017

Recruiting for: across the board

Hong Kong internships

Deadline: 5 November 2017

Recruiting for: across the board

Singapore internships

Deadline: 29 October 2017

Recruiting for: across the board

Where to apply: Deutsche’s careers page

GOLDMAN SACHS

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 24 September 2017

Recruiting for: across divisions

Hong Kong and Singapore internships

Deadline: 22 October 2017

Recruiting for: across divisions

Where to apply: The GS students and grads page for APAC

HSBC

Hong Kong full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: Late October 2017 (exact date requested) 

Recruiting for: commercial banking, global asset management, global private banking, global markets, HSBC securities services, global liquidity and cash management, global research, retail banking and wealth management, retail banking, wealth management digital

Singapore full-time analyst programmes 

Deadline: Late October 2017

Recruiting for: commercial banking, global private banking, global banking, HSBC securities services, global liquidity and cash management, retail banking, wealth management

Hong Kong internships

Deadline: Late October 2017

Recruiting for: commercial banking, global asset management, global private banking, global banking, global markets, HSBC securities services, global liquidity and cash management, global research, retail banking, wealth management digital

Singapore internships

Deadline: Late October 2017

Recruiting for: commercial banking, global private banking, global banking, HSBC securities services, global liquidity and cash management, retail banking, wealth management

Where to apply: HSBC students and graduates website

J.P. MORGAN

Hong Kong full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 29 October 2017

Recruiting for: corporate analyst, technology

Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 1 October 2017

Recruiting for: corporate analyst, technology

Hong Kong and Singapore internships

Deadlines: 29 October 2017 for all departments, apart from global markets and investment banking. Deadlines in these units are between 11 September 2017 and 29 October 2017, depending on your current school location. Check on the job description as you submit your application online.

Recruiting for: asset management, development programme, global finance and business management, global markets, global treasury management, human resources, investment banking, risk management, technology, wealth management

Where to apply: J.P. Morgan’s careers site

MORGAN STANLEY

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: 15 October 2017

Recruiting for: infrastructure divisions

Hong Kong internships

Deadlines: 15 October 2017 (institutional securities group) and 5 November 2017 (infrastructure divisions)

Recruiting for: institutional securities group, infrastructure divisions

Singapore internships

Deadline: 15 October 2017

Recruiting for: institutional securities group

Where to apply: Morgan Stanley’s campus recruitment page

SOCIETE GENERALE

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: SocGen has no annual application deadline in Asia as its graduate hiring is on a rolling basis throughout the year.

Recruiting for: across divisions

Hong Kong internships (no SG internships offered)

Deadline: Early May 2018

Recruiting for: across divisions

Where to apply: SocGen’s student jobs site

STANDARD CHARTERED

Hong Kong and Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: application deadlines vary by division and country. The bank would not provide dates and does not publish them on its website.

Recruiting for: commercial banking, corporate and institutional banking clients and corporate finance, financial markets, retail banking, transaction banking, wealth management

Hong Kong and Singapore internships

Deadline: application deadlines vary by division and country. The bank would not provide dates and does not publish them on its website.

Recruiting for: commercial banking, corporate and institutional banking clients and corporate finance, financial markets, retail banking, transaction banking, wealth management

Where to apply: SCB’s graduate microsite

UBS

Hong Kong full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: tbc (information requested)

Recruiting for: asset management, CCS, group finance, group operations, group risk control, group technology, human resources, ICS – equities (sales), ICS – equities (trading), group corporate services

Singapore full-time analyst programmes

Deadline: tbc

Recruiting for: asset management, CCS, GALM, group finance, group operations, group risk control, group technology, human resources, group corporate services

Hong Kong internships

Deadline: tbc

Recruiting for: asset management, CCS, GALM, group finance, group operations, group risk control, group technology, ICS – equities (sales), ICS – equities (trading) 

Singapore internships

Deadline: tbc

Recruiting for: asset management, CCS, GALM, group finance, group operations, group risk control, group technology, human resources

Where to apply: The UBS student careers page

Follow @simonmortlock

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““

Six years ago Vikas Sharma had a burning ambition. He’d already become a successful banker in his home country, India, but he now wanted to take his career global and work in some of the world’s leading financial centres.

“I was in Mumbai dealing with hedge funds in Hong Kong and Singapore, but I was seeking more direct exposure to global markets,” says Sharma, who was working on the institutional desk at Indian investment bank ENAM at the time. “So I wanted to relocate to a global city like Hong Kong.”

Rather than apply for global banking jobs while still in India, Sharma took a longer but ultimately more beneficial route: he decided to move countries and complete an internationally-focused MBA.

“I reasoned that I’d have a much better chance of building a global career in banking if I had a global qualification under my belt,” explains Sharma.

After considering several business schools across Asia and Europe, Sharma enrolled in the MBA programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “I was impressed at the unique way the CUHK MBA combines cutting-edge research from both the West and emerging markets. That helps make the course content more global than other MBAs,” he says.

“Having studied engineering as an undergraduate, I also wanted formal training to develop my financial skills. Several of my hedge fund clients said the CUHK MBA was top-tier for people wanting to work in international finance,” he adds.

Students at CUHK can, for example, select finance as a ‘concentration option’ and tailor their degree to focus on corporate finance, investment, banking systems, and the Asia Pacific money market.

Sharma says the MBA gave him broader and deep technical expertise, but he was equally impressed by how effectively it improved his softer skills. “If you want to work in an international environment in finance, the ability to be culturally sensitive is just as crucial as knowing the numbers. Banking is a human business.”

This is all the more important when you’re leading international teams because your success depends on “navigating and adapting to differences”, says Sharma, who rose up the ranks in international banking after graduating from CUHK and is currently a director at UBS in Dubai.

The leadership development course in CUHK’s MBA programme emphasises the need to adjust your management style to meet the needs of individual team members. And this flexible approach is also infused throughout the degree.

When working with classmates in small case study groups Sharma got a “first-hand understanding of how to be flexible and deal with culture differences in global teams”. “My class was diverse. There were people from China, Germany and Canada, for example, in industries from finance to consulting to semiconductors.”

Being placed in teams of people from across the world also means “there’s a broad range of opinions when you’re discussing business problems”, says Sharma. “If everyone were from the same country or industry, I wouldn’t have identified the blind spots in my knowledge.”

Sharma has now successfully put his cross-cultural skills to use in three markets, starting with a summer internship at HSBC’s global banking team, which he completed in 2012 while at CUHK.

“CUHK gives you the option of adding an internship to your MBA – it’s a way of immediately applying your class learnings on the job. I was working in a more international workplace than ever before and interacting with colleagues from Hong Kong and many different countries,” he says.

Sharma launched his international career full-time shortly after he graduated from CUHK. He attended a recruitment day for MBA students at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong, but the job he got as a result saw him relocate to the bank’s headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2013.

“My team was very international – I hired people from Spain, China, Russia,” says Sharma of his time as a manager in high-net-worth banking at Credit Suisse. “Because of my CUHK learnings, I provided individual leadership for each person, making sure they took ownership of their objectives.”

He also adjusted well to working in Switzerland. “Time is crucial there – you can never be late to a meeting. And Swiss people are typically direct and precise in their communication style, while in Hong Kong you have to read between the lines more.”

Last year Sharma moved again, this time to Dubai to join UBS as a director in investment management, where he serves family offices, entrepreneurs and corporates across the gulf region.

“About 170 nationalities live in Dubai – people from Kenya, Tanzania and Bahrain, for example – it’s a real melting pot,” says Sharma. “So just like at CUHK, the more adaptable and culturally sensitive you are, the better. As a banker here, you must learn how to be subtle and less upfront in communicating with both clients and colleagues.”

“I’m a 30-something banker who often meets 50-something CEOs in the Middle East, so I have to use my communication skills to ensure I’m on the same wave length and can gain their trust to take projects from origination to execution,” he adds. “The CUHK MBA helped me to get to this stage in my career. And it helped me realise my ambition to live and work across the world as a banker.”

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Investment banks are hiring for fixed income again, but it’s complicated. Strategy reviews, business closures or retreats have ensured that despite an appetite to recruit, headcount on the trading floor is still heading down.

“In 2010, if one top 12 investment bank started to recruit in a particular area of fixed income, the rest would have followed,” says George Kuznetsov, head of research and analytics at Coalition. “Now, it’s just the top two or three firms that don’t want to be left behind in any one area. There have been so many restructurings in FICC, so few banks are willing to commit to recruitment.”

There’s one exception to this rule, however – credit. Most banks cut back their credit traders last year, and are now engaging in “musical chairs” trying to lure them back again, says Kuznetsov.

“Banks are now seeing the need to replace traders who have left for other banks, or are rebuilding diminished teams,” he says. “Credit is the one area every bank is hiring for.”

Coalition has just released its first half assessment of the investment banking landscape, which suggests that generally headcount is still heading down – although the cuts are less brutal than in previous years. 700 front office jobs have gone over the past 12 months – 400 of these have gone from banks’ equities divisions.

Kuznetsov suggests that it could get worse in the equities divisions. The full impact of MiFID II on banks’ research teams has yet to be felt. Most banks are holding off on “headcount optimisation decisions” until they get more visibility on its impact, he says – in other words, more cuts could be coming.

Within advisory functions, headcount is generally stable. A 52% year on year uptick in revenues within equity capital markets (ECM) has not yet translated into an increased appetite to hire, he suggests.

The best places to work within FICC in the first half of 2017 were credit, where revenues were up 14% year on year, and securitisation, which increased by 53%. Specifically, Coalition suggests that non-agency residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) and commercial mortgage-backed securities were particularly healthy in the first half. On the other hand, commodities is still in the doldrums – a lot of investment banks have pulled back or closed these divisions entirely, but they generated a cumulative revenues of just $1.3bn in the first half – 41% down on last year.

Most banks’ equities divisions continued to suffer this year, but equity derivatives trading revenues were the one stable area. Coalition says that structured products in EMEA and Asia-Pacific were particularly strong.

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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Image: Getty Images

““

Life has improved for young people at Goldman Sachs. So say those young people themselves in the latest ranking of the best investment banks to work for by the Vault. 

Goldman came out top in the Vault’s ranking, partly because it’s still seen as “the best in breed,” and colleagues there are seen as, “talented, thoughtful and respectful,” but also because it’s no longer seen as working people half to death after introducing new policies to give young people time off (on Saturdays).  “The firm is extremely focused on improving work/life balance,” one Goldman junior told the Vault. “In the time that I’ve been here, I’ve seen a tremendous difference, not only as a result of formal policies but also in the culture and mindset of those who work here.”

If Goldman is the best place to work, the worst places in terms of long hours still seem to be the boutiques, which have long been notorious for their hard grind. Although Evercore, Centerview and Moelis all ranked highly in the Vault’s list and Evercore in particular was lauded for creating a “healthy environment” for its employees, part of boutiques’ appeal is the “exposure” and “deal flow” they offer their juniors. This is another way of saying that analysts work long hours: a survey by Wall Street Oasis in 2015 found that analyst and associates at Moelis worked 90 hour weeks on average. “We try to help people balance their lives as best we can, but we have so much deal flow that it can be tough,” one Evercore banker admits.

The worst lifestyles may, however, be preserved for the unfortunate junior bankers at the intersection of long hours and expensive accommodation – namely those working for demanding banks in Hong Kong. Space in the Asian city is so restricted and at such a premium that Bloomberg says young bankers have begun living in upmarket dormitory-style apartments. Working a 90 hour week and then returning to a dorm is not most people’s idea of living the dream.

Separately, Gary Cohn’s principles have got the better of him. The ex-Goldman COO had been expected to replace Janet Yellen as chairman of the Federal Reserve. However, President Trump has indicated that this is now unlikely after Cohn told the Financial Times he was “disgusted” by Trump’s blaming of both white supremacists and counter-protestors for violence and deaths at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last month. Trump used to like Cohn, but he reportedly now “visibly bristles” when he hears his name.

Meanwhile:

Lloyd Blankfein on the prospect of Gary Cohn running the Fed: “No one’s perfect, but he’s the best I know.” (NY Post) 

Lloyd Blankfein on Goldman’s poor performance: “We have always had periods of time where we haven’t done well. I’m not terribly aggrieved by it. It’s a level playing field for everyone. I think we can do well in this environment, and we can do well if they relax the rules.” (Wall Street Journal) 

Deutsche Bank’s John Cryan on the location of bank jobs post-Brexit: “It’s not about a choice between Dublin, Paris or Frankfurt – it’s about a choice between New York, Singapore or Frankfurt.” (Financial News)  

Citigroup hired Jason Massey from Morgan Stanley to head sales for futures, clearing and collateral in Europe, Middle East and Africa. (Business Insider) 

Barclays hired Michael Lublinsky from Brevan Howard to run its rates business. (City Am) 

Senior American bankers with children aged 18+ will not be able to bring their older children to the UK under new immigration rules. (Guardian) 

Polish college drop out claims to be earning £500k ($652k) as a life coach. (Telegraph)

All the money flowing into private equity is encouraging private equity professionals to set up their own funds. (Bloomberg)

Too many MBA students want to be tech entrepreneurs. (Financial Times)

Maybe you too should swim in cold water at 6am every day. (The Drum) 

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Have a story or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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In 2014, in what would be the first of many rounds of job cuts in its investment bank, Barclays said that it had earmarked 20% of its managing directors and directors for the chop. Peter De Clercq, who was a managing director and country head for Belgium and Luxembourg at the time, was hit. Redundancy turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

“If I’d stayed in investment banking, I’d never have started my own company,” he says. “It’s a golden cage – a lot of people are frustrated, businesses are scaling down and it’s less fun. But, you can still make a good living, and this is better than a leap into the great unknown.”

For the past three years, De Clercq has quietly been heading up a fintech firm called Quantessence, which is looking to disrupt a niche, but massive, part of the financial sector. It had been running under its own steam, but in May this year Euroclear, the Belgium-based post-trade firm that settles €675 trillion ($808 trillion) annually, bought control of the company.

“I didn’t have much choice about leaving Barclays, but once out I decided I’d really go for it setting up this company,” says De Clercq. “I didn’t want it to be something on the side. If I made it, great – but if it didn’t work, I’d end up sleeping under a bridge.”

The idea behind the firm is to provide a solution to the operational headache for investment banks and insurance firms that results from the individualisation of Constant Proportion Portfolio Insurance (iCPPI). iCCPI has been gaining traction within the insurance industry in recent years. It allows people to ensure a balanced portfolio for their savings by using an algorithm to reallocate investments depending on their performance. Insurance firms protect some of this for investors, but investment banks usually ensure that it’s fully hedged in exchange for a fee.

“It’s really an insurance tool, and it’s highly individualised which means it can operationally complex,” he says. “But it’s a problem for all banks – they hate doing operations and this is very burdensome for them. Our platform automates this process.”

De Clercq was responsible for Barclays’ biggest iCPPI project during his time there as well as heading up its Belgium and Luxembourg investment banking business from London. Quantessence has just seven employees including Giles Beale, a former director in EFS trading at Barclays who is its chief operating officer and Wim Hautekiet, latterly a J.P. Morgan managing director, who is a non-executive director.

De Clercq says it’s hiring for sales and business analysts, but is struggling to find the right people.

“We’ve found it hard to recruit – not for a lack of applicants. We had over 250 people apply for a recent role, but we want a mix of commercial awareness and quant skills,” he says. “We have four open roles, but we’re looking for around five years’ experience within financial services.”

After nearly 30 years in investment banking, at Barclays, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, De Clercq has now embraced the start-up lifestyle. He says that the recruitment of Nikolaos Papadopoulos, its chief strategy officer, began with a recommendation from a former colleague who said that he was “the best brain in systems architecture”.

“He was developing a platform for the real estate sector in Australia, but dropped everything to move to London, and crashed at my place for months while we hashed out the idea,” says De Clercq.

Quantessence has essentially been in stealth mode for the best part of three years, but had been negotiating the deal with Euroclear since the outset. Throughout this time, De Clercq has been keeping the business afloat with his own money. Insurance firms were interested in the concept “from the start”, he says, but it’s only since June – after the Euroclear deal was finalised – that they’ve approached big investment banks and asset managers.

“The biggest challenge was funding and finding a sponsor,” he says. “We funded it ourselves, and were very keen to avoid VC investment. We were in discussions for a long time with Euroclear – they’re risk-averse and investing in a fintech firm was a challenge for them. In the meantime, it was hard to move forward and play the waiting game.”

De Clercq says that the challenge for a lot of bankers who are seeking to leave the comfort of a large investment bank is breaking the deal mentality. “A lot of bankers who leave big firms are still going from deal to deal. For example, some people are sourcing assets from an insurance company, then selling them to hedge funds. For me, this is too nerve-wracking. I wanted to set up a sustainable business – if I fall under a bus now, the business keeps going.”

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If you’re interviewing with a top tier investment bank, you’ve probably encountered the infamous “fit” interview questions. Especially common at the first stage Hirevue digital interviews used by the likes of J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, they usually include things like, “Why do you want to work here?”, “What’s your greatest strength?”, “Tell me about a time you worked in a team to achieve a goal”. So far, so blah.

If you’ve interviewed with an investment banking division (IBD) job with a big bank and you go on to interview with a smaller boutique, you’ll therefore be in for a horrid shock. While banks’ interviews are like being struck with a lump of soggy cotton wool, boutiques’ are like having your cortex probed with wire. It’s still IBD, so you (probably) won’t be asked the kinds of brain teasers now favoured by hedge funds, but you are going to have your knowledge examined deeply.

“I was never asked questions of the type, ‘Tell me a time you showed leadership’, when I was interviewing here,” says one analyst at Perella Weinberg Partners in London. “At bulge bracket interviews I was asked some very trivial questions,” says another Perella analyst: “Here, I was pushed much harder.” An analyst at Moelis & Co. tells us his boutique interviews were of a different magnitude of stressfulness and complexity to his interviews at investment banks. A student interviewing with boutique Centerview Partners described the process as “brutal”. And a student interviewing with Evercore described it as, “easily the hardest first round interview I had”.

What makes boutique interviews so coruscating? It’s partly the questions that are asked. Boutiques are a lot hotter on scrutinizing technical skills than banks. Before you go anywhere near an interview with a boutique, you’ll therefore need to know everything about the valuation methodologies and their relative merits and demerits. You’ll need to know especially about leveraged buyout (LBO) methodology and you’ll need to know all accounting terms and how to calculate WACC.

“Boutique interviews centre around the technicals,” says one of the analysts at Perella: “They’ll ask you about valuation, accretion, dilution, financial statements and accounting.”

Boutiques also require greater breadth of knowledge than banks. An analyst at one of the smaller and most prestigious boutiques in London says that because boutiques like his own don’t have sector-based teams and researchers, juniors need to have much deeper knowledge than their counterparts in big banks. “It’s critical that juniors here are aware of the macro trends (political, economic and regulatory) that might impact deal activity,” he says. “For instance, I was asked about the impact of the Fed’s decisions on company valuations at my interview.” He says he was also asked to demonstrate an awareness of how private equity investors think and to discuss how investors can use derivatives to hedge their investments.

It’s not just the depth and breadth of boutiques’ questions that sets them apart. It’s also the aggressiveness of their interviewers. Whereas banking interviewers can be gentle so as not to stress-out the student across the room, boutique interviewers have no such compunctions. If you hold an opinion, expect to justify it. If you produce a valuation, expect to explain how it would change under different scenarios. If you make it through the first round, expect some harsh case studies where you’re asked to derive the share price from fundamentals like EBITDA and balance sheet figures, or advise on how to structure a leveraged buyout under different market conditions.

These are the kinds of questions banks more commonly level at candidates with a few years’ experience, but juniors say boutiques ask them of analysts and even summer analysts who are still at university. “We don’t have as many people in the intermediary layers between the junior and top senior levels,” says one. “As a consequence, even an analyst here has to be able to directly interact with clients and to be very adaptable.”

“Because you’re joining a smaller team, your contribution is more important and the competency bar is set higher at the start,” says another.

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Tom Wilson, the head of talent acquisition at $240bn asset management firm OppenheimerFunds, has a curious analogy about the seemingly slow decline of active asset management. It’s a melting iceberg – but it’s a very big one.

“The rate of attrition from active to passive ebbs and flows, and that will continue,” Wilson said. “Flows come in and go out in cycles, but assets have a stickiness, and the demise of the active management business has certainly been exaggerated.

“That said, to be effective, the approach that you have to take is changing, which is why we’ve been building out a smart beta ETF business,” he said. “We in active management are being impacted in so many ways by the growth of passive, the influences of quantitative investing, regulatory burdens and AI, which is impacting not only how analysis is done, but so many types of work.

Wilson, a former a sales-trader who worked his way up to managing director and the global head of recruiting at Merrill Lynch, was giving the opening keynote address at a recent employment event hosted by the CFA Society New York.

Those factors are impacting OppenheimerFunds’ economics, hiring practices and business strategies.

“They’re having interesting effects on blurring lines in asset management between fundamental and quantitative and between institutional and retail distribution channels,” Wilson said. “We’ve combined those sales desks, because institutional consultants, retail gatekeepers and RIAs are all asking the same types of questions – the world is converging.”

OppenheimerFunds is recruiting constantly

OppenheimerFunds has been recruiting actively and consistently even though it has not been increasing its overall headcount.

“The net growth of our company from an employment perspective is flat, but we’re constantly recruiting, just not because of net growth,” Wilson said. “We went through the same thing at Merrill Lynch – even as it was shrinking dramatically, there was a lot of hiring going on.

“While the net growth of demand for fundamental analysis is flat, the impact of a good analyst is greater than ever before,” he said. “The core demand is more in international sectors than in the U.S., and there’s continued demand for credit skills, so there is opportunity.”

Stay in tune with your roots after getting promoted

A tried-and-true buy-side career path is to pay your dues and prove your worth as an investment analyst, bide your time and try to position yourself for a promotion to portfolio manager.

“We promote a lot of analysts and they become portfolio managers, and it’s valuable for portfolio managers to never lose their hand in following specific sectors so that they retain an understanding of fundamental activities of what’s going on in those sectors,” Wilson said.

A key to getting promoted is to demonstrate consistency in your investment process and philosophy, as well as your approach to navigating your career path, he says. Don’t job-hop.

“Consistency of returns is more important than ever, not just aggregate over a period of time but the smoothness of those returns,” Wilson said. “The corollary is the consistency of your [investment] team – you can’t have a lot of volatility in your team just like you can’t have a lot of volatility in your returns, and I see that from a recruitment perspective.

“It’s important for analysts to have a very coherent trajectory to your career, because that’s what we value, a confidence that your approach is going to be systematic and consistent and repeatable, not idiosyncratic,” he said. “Reflect that not only in your [investment] analysis but in your career path as well.”

If you’re making career shifts, differentiation is harder but more important than ever in the asset management industry.

“We care about how you approach generating returns, so it’s important to explain yourself in ways that are differentiated and yet are able to generate consistent and repeatable results,” Wilson said. “Not many people are good at it, so if you can find that differentiated approach, it can make a big difference.”
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““

Goldman Sachs is paying more to its brand new technology analysts in an attempt to compete with Silicon Valley. Bloomberg reported last month that the bank is now paying entry-level “engineers” salaries of around $100k (£76k), up from around $83k previously – an increase of 20%. We understand that the pay rise is being rolled out globally, although calibrated to different regional markets.

While Goldman’s newest technology employees are in luck, however, its more experienced technologists stand to feel neglected. Junior technologists who’ve already been with Goldman for a year say their pay hasn’t been re-rated to take consideration of the higher rate for graduate entrants. At worst, second year technology analysts stand to earn less than the first years below them.

“This already happened a few years ago,” says one Goldman technologist in London. “There was a year when the new grads were paid more than the first years. It was really awkward and led to a lot of problems.”

Goldman declined to comment on pay for its junior technologists. Standard salaries for first years in tech functions at banks in London are £40k to £45k. A 20% increase would take that to between £48k and £54k – still considerably lower than in the U.S., where the competition from tech firms is arguably greater.

Technologists at Goldman have been spotted complaining about their lot on Glassdoor, where they insist that they’re worked too hard for the amount they earn and that the projects are bureaucratic and involve proprietary technology that’s not applicable elsewhere.

Nonetheless, the technologists we spoke to were happy – despite the potential disparity in pay with new juniors. “The work here is interesting, although it does depend which team you’re on,” says one. “I chose to work for GS because it’s a big name in finance and will help with my future career,” says another. “I didn’t choose Goldman for the salary”, he adds, “I chose it for the growth platform.”

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Today is a big day for change at the top of the technology tree at J.P. Morgan. Lori Beer, the former chief information officer of J.P. Morgan’s corporate and investment bank has been promoted to group CIO. We understand that the man replacing her is Michael Grimaldi, who moved across from Deutsche Bank late last month and will be based in the London office.

Grimaldi was only at Deutsche Bank for two years after joining from Goldman in 2014. He spent 21 years at GS, latterly as global head of securities division technology and investment research. Grimaldi quit Goldman for Deutsche as the quants and strats took over during the ascendance of Marty Chavez. A popular figure at Goldman, Grimaldi is said to have “flooded” the tech team with cake when he was made partner in 2011. Technologists at J.P. Morgan will be hoping he does much the same when he arrives there.

Meanwhile, Beer’s promotion was announced earlier today in an internal memo sent around the organisation by Jamie Dimon who described her as an “outstanding executive”. She is replacing Dana Deasy, who has held the CIO role since 2014 when he joined from BP and is retiring, but maintaining some responsibilities on the boards of J.P. Morgan’s fintech partnerships. With Beer’s promotion, J.P. Morgan’s operating committee is now 50% women.

J.P. Morgan has a huge technology team, with around 40,000 people in these functions globally. 10,000 of these work for its corporate and investment bank.

Suffice to say, Beer’s elevation is something of an anomaly within the banking technology world. Across all industries, women comprise just 9% of senior technology roles, according to the 2017 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO, but this figure is decidedly smaller at large U.S. banks. Catherine Bessant, chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, is the other notable example at board level. She leads 95,000 employees across the divisions in more than 35 countries.

Beer’s new position is even more impressive when you consider that she started out working in technology in the 1980s. If you think gender stereotypes exist in the tech world exist now, try kicking off your career when A Flock of Seagulls were in the charts. Beer told us previously that for much of the early part of her career she was the only woman working on technology teams, and had to work doubly hard to get noticed.

“I spent years being the only woman on predominantly male technology teams, but the best thing you can do as a woman in technology is to stay focused on the value you can bring as an individual. Tech teams need diversity of perspective,” she said. Women shouldn’t try to be one of the guys, she said: “Often there’s a social and emotional aspect to the end product and I learned early on that this was something I was good at managing and so I made the most of those characteristics.”

Beer only joined J.P. Morgan three years ago, initially as head of banking technology, but was promoted to CIO of its investment bank in June last year when Mark Ashton-Rigby departed for Barclays. Before that, she spent a decade at insurance firm WellPoint. If her time at J.P. Morgan has seen her rise rapidly up the ranks, Beer said that she didn’t always make the best choices about her career.

“When I was younger, I moved around the country for different jobs, but I let the opportunities guide me rather than having a clear plan about where I wanted to be. Too often, people look at what’s in front of them without seeing the bigger picture, so I’d encourage longer term goals,” she said.

Beer will report into Daniel Pinto, head of the corporate and investment bank (CIB) and Gordon Smith, head of Chase.

“I’d like to thank Dana for his tireless service heading our Global Technology efforts and overseeing more than 40,000 technologists around the world,” said Dimon in his memo. “We have all benefited from significant improvements, efficiencies and innovation that Dana and his teams have delivered for the firm.”

Paul Bennie, managing director at headhunters Bennie MacLean, which hires senior technology staff into banks, said Beer’s promotion was a “slick piece of succession planning”.

“Having an internal candidate of Lori’s calibre will keep the J.P. Morgan juggernaut rolling in the right direction,” he said.

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““

Moving between banks after short tenures is, as a rule, something to avoid – even if the practice is still prevalent in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Interviewers in Asia love grilling candidates about their motivations for frequently changing firms – and most of the time candidates come up with very poor excuses.

There are, however, a few reasons for job hopping that banks still consider to be reasonable. Here’s our pick.

1. X “affected the quality of my work” (and other changes of tone)

Justifying a small stint somewhere often comes down to the way you phrase your reasons, says Han Lee, a director at search firm Lico Resources in Singapore. So get your tone right. “If you say ‘I hated the politics in that bank’ it sounds like a bad excuse. But if you say ‘I recognise that politics are inevitable wherever you go, but I think the situation in that organisation was a bit extreme as it was severely affecting the quality of my work’ recruiters will respond much better.”

2. My new job was offshored straight away

“An unfortunate trend is that banks headquartered overseas now make very fast decisions to offshore jobs away from Singapore,” says Nichole Milne, a project manager at HR company Pontoon Solutions in Singapore. “I’ve worked with many candidates who’ve moved to new banks only to face offshoring upon joining.”

3. I know better now

Recruiters may not mind if you own up to a bad move. “I’ve interviewed candidates who’ve made poor decisions and regretted them, but turned this into a positive,” says a Hong Kong recruiter. “One person recently told me he job hopped for more money only to realise this was a poor driver. He said he’s now learned from that experience to make better informed assessments about changing jobs.”

4. My boss took me with them

To leave as part of a team move is generally an acceptable reason. “This is especially common in private banking and it shows that you’re a strong performer and that your boss recognises this,” says Kyle Blockley, managing partner of recruitment firm KS International. “Just make sure you also explain why the team move made sense from your own perspective.”

5. I left before I was axed

“It’s usually an acceptable reason when candidates say they were worried about job stability because they had heard news of offshoring or redundancies happening,” says Matthew Ng, vice president of banking at recruiters Charterhouse in Singapore. “Potential employers tend to be empathetic with this.”

6. I wanted broader experience

This is an adequate excuse, but only if you can then provide details to prove that it’s true, says Christine Wright, Asia managing director of recruitment firm Hays. “You need to show that you haven’t been getting jobs with the exact same duties and responsibilities. If you’ve worked in different areas such as finance, operations and risk, that’s more acceptable.”

7. I returned to my core strength

So you went to the buy-side but moved rapidly back into banking? Just admit that the move was a mistake. “It’s ok to say you took a risk and tried something new, but it didn’t work out,” says Wright. “Make sure you show that you returned to your previous profession with renewed enthusiasm.”

8. The person who hired me walked out on me

“I’ve had several examples of someone joining a bank, only for the hiring manager to move into a different team a matter of days later,” says Chris Jackson, a director at Pure Search in Hong Kong. “This can be especially difficult if you’ve really personally bought into that manager as a key reason for taking the job and you don’t have the same connection with your new boss, who wasn’t involved in the interview process. It can cause candidates to leave within their probation period.”

9. My department was undervalued

Candidates are sometimes justified in speaking up about how their department was viewed internally, says Steve Hutchinson, director of recruitment firm The Andersen Partnership in Singapore. “For example, I’ve heard compliance candidates say that the business had a poor governance culture and senior management followed certain practices that could have landed them in trouble with the regulator.”

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““

UOB wants to bolster its technology team in Singapore and it’s targeting firms like Google and Facebook to secure some of its new talent.

The bank is currently hiring more technologists (including engineers, analysts, digital designers, architects, project managers and data scientists), Susan Hwee, head of group technology and operations, told us, without providing recruitment numbers. About 4,500 of UOB’s 25,000 employees work in Hwee’s department.

Hwee is recruiting techies from both finance and non-finance backgrounds. “If you’re designing a new trading system, for example, you need technologists who already understand how markets work.”

When hiring in digital banking, though, UOB is open to candidates from “global technology platforms” such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Uber, says Hwee. “These people are focused on engaging customers and customer-centric design, just like we are.”

“They also design technology from the outside in,” adds Hwee. “Traditional banks are risk adverse and have designed IT systems from the inside out. Now we need a balance between customer needs and the bank’s risk management needs.”

But why would a Googler want to join a bank? Hwee says she enjoys the “challenge” of working in banking technology, “given how heavily the sector is regulated and the complexity of the industry”.

“Even at school I was fascinated by banking products and interested in applied technology in banking,” says Hwee, who has worked in technology for more than 30 years, including stints at Citi and IBM. “Banking is a risk business and is essentially all about technology, so you can reimagine the whole sector in your head – it’s cerebral.”

While several global banks have recently offshored IT roles to low-cost Asian markets like India and the Philippines, UOB still bases most of its technologists at its Singapore headquarters.

“UOB has a global workforce in technology in Singapore. Many of our people are Singaporean, Malaysian, Filipino, Indian and Chinese, but we also have staff from countries such as France, Lebanon, Romania and Australia,” says Hwee.

The bank also wants to hear from London-based technologists who might now be interested in relocating to Singapore ahead of the UK’s departure from the European Union.

“We recognise the push to have a ‘Singapore core’ of employees in the workplace,” says Hwee. “We also want to hire the right people for the right jobs. Talent is global, so we need to compete globally for the best people.”

Wherever you are applying from, Hwee says she likes candidates who have “worked on the execution and implementation of complex projects, where there was a big problem to address”.

“At interviews, I like you to talk about your failures and how you’ve learned from them. This gives me a view of the depth of your thinking and the strength of your leadership.”

Three “mega themes” – digital architecture, data, and security – now underpin UOB’s technology objectives after the firm finished standardising its core banking platforms in 2013.

“In banking, security means more than just cyber security. For example, having more RMs out in the field with tablets when they meet clients opens up potential security risks for banks,” says Hwee.

Meanwhile, UOB technologists are using agile methodology to launch and update digital products more quickly, and the bank is focused on giving staff and clients better access to data.

Understanding data is also key to long-term job security in banking, says Hwee. “Robotics will affect jobs in banking – that’s the reality,” she says. “Having the versatility and ability to analyse data can help avoid your job being automated. Making decisions and judgements based on data – to derive value for yourself and the bank – is becoming the skill set for the future.”

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““

What kind of person do you need to be to get ahead in a major hedge fund? How about analytical and driven? Numerate and curious? Or “living in truth” and “assertive and open minded at the same time.”

The first two sets of options were concocted by us, the third by the hedge fund personality-meister Ray Dalio, founder and chairman and co-CIO of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates and soon-to-be-author of his grand opus, “Principles: Life and Work.”  

A practitioner of his self-concocted ontological precept of, “radical transparency” (saying the same thing to everyone, especially when you disagree, resolving tensions in the open), Dalio is known for being rather demanding as a boss. Various Bridgewater executives have left in the past year, including Jose Marques, head of trading and Job Rubenstein, the former Apple executive brought in as co-CEO.  

As part of Dalio’s transparent ethos, all 1,500 Bridgewater employees are constantly rating each other across more than 100 attributes on a 1-10 scale via Dots, a proprietary iPad app that is a crucial element of Dalio’s “radical transparency” and “algorithmic decision-making” philosophy. Now Business Insider has published a copy of the iPad screen derived from a Bridgewater Associates TED presentation showing exactly what those attributes are. You can see this below.

Some of Dalio’s dot-features are pretty standard (creativity, practive, results-orientation). Others are not. Who knew that you had to be wise to work in a hedge fund? Or that being “willing to touch the nerve” and “sizing people up” were things? Our favourite though is the quality we mentioned at the start – being “assertive and open-minded at the same time” – two things often in conflict. If you can manage this, you’ll do well. Maybe Dalio’s onto something after all?

The personality traits Bridgewater rewards you for:

Source: Bridgewater/TED (via Business Insider)

Separately, a Bloomberg reporter noted some similarities between the blue U.S. Open tennis courts in Queens and the trading floors of Wall Street.

Both in the market and on the tennis court, everybody is watching the conditions – in tennis, the surface and the weather impact game play. The indominatable lefty Rafael Nadal dominates clay while the easy power and finesse of Roger Federer, known simply as Fed, were made for grass. Grass courts play faster, especially in the heat, and the ball stays lower, a difficult combination for an opponent trying to return one of Fed’s slice backhands.

In fixed income, the reporter says everyone’s watching that other Fed. The U.S. central bank is gradually raising interest rates from the historic lows it maintained after the financial crisis, creating an attractive environment in which to sell debt, per Bloomberg.

Tennis players are taught to develop a point, wait for the opening and strike when the opportunity arises. Bond traders use options, waiting for the bond price to reach a certain level before striking, or buying or selling the securities. Like a barrage of cross-court forehands, it requires patience and an instinct for the window of opportunity.

Bond traders and tennis players are clearly in the intersection of a venn diagram. To suggest that being good at one will make you good at another might be pushing the thought too far.

Meanwhile:

The Bank of England expressed “significant concern” to Deutsche Bank in a letter concerning its U.K. branch authorization ahead of Brexit. (Business Insider)

To the chagrin of Dublin and Paris, Goldman Sachs is considering quadrupling the amount of staff it has in Frankfurt. (Bloomberg)

Trump’s deteriorating relationship with ex-Goldman no. 2 Gary Cohn has ominous implications for the one thing Wall Street cares about most. (Business Insider)

Lloyd Blankfein, the 62-year-old CEO of Goldman Sachs, tweeted a picture of his old Harvard ID. (Business Insider)

#TBT Summer’s over; back to school! pic.twitter.com/4d7uXrKDeA

— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) September 7, 2017

MiFID is hitting the buy side much harder than it is the sell side. (Bloomberg)

If you’re a fixed income analyst and you’re all out of bond trading ideas, then you’re in trouble. (Bloomberg)

Two frat brothers starting a hedge fund allegedly took an illegal shortcut to show they were top-notch traders: buying illegal tips from their friend at Amazon.com. (Bloomberg)

Mind-reading brain-computer interfaces are already here. (Bloomberg)

A couple of 30-something guys quit their jobs at J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs to co-found a farmland-focused PE firm that now manages $575m. (Business Insider)

Standard Chartered placed a $400m bet that diamonds are forever – and lost. (Bloomberg)

Britain’s best-known fund manager has apologized to investors after losing hundreds of millions of pounds on a series of disastrous stock-picks. (The Telegraph)

Step aside, Robert De Niro. This 48-year-old intern is a mother of three. (Spectator)

A day in the life of a Kombucha-drinking, wall-climbing Silicon Valley intern. (Business Insider)
Follow @danbutchrwrites

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A senior FX salesman at Credit Suisse, who has spent the past 20 years working for big investment banks in London, has quit to lead the trading arm of a $400bn asset manager.

Enrico Casini, who was latterly a managing director and head of FX sales for Europe the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for central banks and sovereign wealth fund clients at Credit Suisse, is now CEO of Pictet Global Markets UK.

Pictet Global Markets is part of Swiss private bank and asset manager Pictet Group, and carries out trading execution services for family offices, wealth managers, asset managers and hedge funds. It has 14 employees in London, but has been picking up some big hires. As well as Casini, Ashley Fox, a senior G10 FX trader at Standard Chartered, joined in August.

Casini will head up all institutional sales activity within its London office, which includes equities, FX and other fixed income products. He joined in July.

Casini has held various senior macro sales jobs at Credit Suisse since joining from Royal Bank of Scotland in 2010, where he was latterly head of European investors FX sales. He left Credit Suisse in June.

Credit Suisse has been losing macro sales and trading staff over the past 18 months since it restructured its markets business in 2016. FX cash and options was moved out of its global markets division and into its STS operations – part of its Swiss Universal Bank. While FX sales staff have been less impacted, a number of senior rates sales and trading staff departed last year, shortly after the bank announced the restructuring.

More recently, Steve Aldridge, Credit Suisse’s head of macro eSales, left the bank and has since re-emerged at fintech firm SafeScribe, as a managing partner for sales and strategy.

Credit Suisse’s ‘solutions’ business, in which its macro division now sits, was down 39% year on year on the second quarter.

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Contact for news, tips and comments: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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Image: Getty Images

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Scott Marcar is the new man in charge of thousands of technologists in Deutsche Bank’s corporate and investment bank. He’s just been promoted to chief information officer of the CIB, replacing Mike Grimaldi who moved to a big new job at J.P. Morgan.

Marcar has only been working at Deutsche Bank for the past three years, and his rise up the ranks has been impressive. He started out as head of IT infrastructure, overseeing around 13,000 people, before being bumped up to chief technology officer last year. CIO is a big step up – the chief technology officer typically oversees IT infrastructure, company desktops and production management, the CIO role encompasses this, but also means that Marcar will head up software development across the investment bank.

Deutsche confirmed the move. Although it doesn’t break out headcount by division, Marcar told us previously that Deutsche Bank employs around 30,000 people in technology across the organisation.

The fact that Deutsche has promoted from within is an example of good succession planning, says Paul Bennie, managing director of headhunters Bennie MacLean. It’s also a way of steadying a ship that has seen an unusual amount of churn in the past few months.

Grimaldi, a former Goldman Sachs managing director who joined Deutsche Bank in 2014, left in August and has since arrived at J.P. Morgan. Yesterday, he was named CIO for J.P. Morgan’s investment bank, following the promotion of Lori Beer to group chief information officer.

In March, Pascal Boillet was promoted to the newly-created role of group chief information officer, while Elly Hardwick was hired as its new head of innovation in December last year. Earlier this week, it brought in Thomas Nielsen, who was previously at Tesco, as chief digital officer for its global transaction bank.

Kim Hammonds, Deutsche’s former global CIO who moved to become its chief operating officer in November 2015, is heading up a project to simplify the bank’s IT infrastructure. Deutsche is also bringing more technology work in house – the bank used to outsource 70% of its technology work, and only carried out 30% in-house. The plan is to turn that ratio around by 2020.

Follow @paultclarke

Contact for news, tips and comments: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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Goldman Sachs is going to start putting its prospective recruits through a personality test. Those who succeed will need to display personality traits similar to the high performers it’s hired already. From this point of view, you might want to know what those high performers are like.

Helpfully, therefore, Goldman just published some survey data on the features and foibles of its recent summer interns. Like last year’s intern survey data, it’s an attempt to show the world what GS interns are like as people. It also shows which programming languages they think are important (Python) and what they think is going to have the biggest impact on the world (machine learning).

You too might think machine learning is the next big thing, but that won’t necessarily make you right for GS. Using the results to the bank’s survey, we have concocted a test to devise your true suitability. Click on the questions below and all will be revealed.

Follow @MadameButcher
Have a story or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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Cantor Fitzgerald may be cutting staff in London, but the new House of Jain is still hiring in the U.S.

Anshu Jain, the former co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, joined Cantor as president in January, and the firm is now making good on his mandate to take the firm through the “next phase of growth” to hire within fixed income sales and trading.

The latest recruit is Matthew Clark, a former managing director in credit sales at J.P. Morgan in San Francisco, who has just joined Cantor Fitzgerald in a similar role. Clark spent the last seven years at J.P. Morgan, having joined in 2010 from Citigroup, where he was also a managing director in credit sales. He left J.P. Morgan in March and arrived at Cantor earlier this month.

Cantor has also hired Michael S. Miller, formerly Macquarie’s head of fixed income trading in New York, who has been working at boutique investment bank CastleOak Securities as a managing director for the past year. He joined in July as another managing director within fixed income trading.

The two hires suggest that the people coming on board at Cantor in the U.S. are getting more senior as the year progresses. In May, it hired Ryan McDuffy as a managing director from BBVA (where he was an executive director in bond trading) and James Papas, an experienced credit trader at Royal Bank of Scotland.

When Jain arrived in January, CEO Howard Lutnik said that he was joining to “drive the firm’s momentum as it enters the next phase of growth”, with the FT suggesting his focus would be to help Cantor “push deeper” into prime brokerage and fixed income sales and trading.

So far, Cantor’s new hires have been focused on fixed income, but this is part of a broader revival of recruitment on Wall Street. Research firm Coalition suggests all the major investment banks are in the market for credit sales and trading staff, while consultants Greenwich Associates believes that there’s more fixed income recruitment in New York now than at any point since the 2008 financial crisis.

Nonetheless, staff are leaving Cantor in the UK, with around 25% of employees registers with the Financial Conduct Authority departing over the past two years. More recently in the U.S., senior staff have also parted ways – Rafeal Elias, a managing director and head of emerging markets strategy, left in June, while Todd Sycoff, an MD and senior high yield trader, departed in May.

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If you’re a student or junior banker who’s trying to make it on Wall Street, you need a mentor. Believe me: in my 17 years on Wall Street, I’ve come to truly appreciate what a powerful tool a mentor can be. A less experienced banker stands to gain a lot from absorbing the wisdom of a Wall Street veteran. I should know. I’ve bounced around enough to make anyone’s head spin: holding five different jobs and living on three different continents during my career. There’s no way that I would have been able to make it as far as I have without mentors guiding me.

But what if you don’t have a mentor? What if you find one, but can’t keep one? When you’re struggling to find a senior banker who’s on your side, you have to ask yourself why.

Do you struggle in maintaining relationships? Getting and keeping a mentor is much like getting and keeping a friend.

Your mentor needs to feel appreciated. He or she needs to know that you value his or her advice. That way, he’ll keep on wanting to help you. I’ve met with and guided many younger bankers, and my favorites have always been the ones who thank me for my investment in them and check in with me regularly. It makes the mentor feel great to hear that the advice you gave them last week really made a difference and why.

If you can’t find a mentor, you can’t find someone who’s willing to put in the effort and care about you. In this case, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself and put yourself in their shoes. Would you invest time and energy into someone with low energy and no motivation? Chances are, the answer is no.

Alternatively, maybe you just haven’t found the right person yet. Maybe you need to spend time on self-improvement. You need to show your potential mentors that you are worth it and you need to sell yourself! I always tried to avoid mentoring the junior bankers who I could not realistically see in the business five years down the road.

Alternatively again, maybe your pride is getting in the way. If you don’t have a mentor, it could be that you’re too proud to ask for help. This is a cutthroat industry. Trust me: I’ve seen dreams crushed and bankers reduced to tears. I myself used to cry in the bathroom during particularly stressful days. It can be tough to admit that you’re struggling because you don’t want to show weakness. But, asking for help will be the best thing you ever did. Mentors aren’t interested in spending time with stuck-up know-it-alls. Be humble and ask for guidance, and your career (and salary!) will thank you.

Like families, the best mentoring relationships all work for the same reasons. Firstly, the two of you will build a relationship. No matter how you meet, it’s always important to develop a good rapport. When I’m mentoring, I understand when junior bankers are nervous around me, but I always gravitate to the ones I feel like I can have a drink with. Be yourself,

Secondly, functioning mentoring relationships are appreciative. The mentee makes sure the mentor feels valued and understands that he/she is making a difference. Update them on your progress! Tell them that you tried their advice and let them know what happened. Even if their advice didn’t work this time, you’ll show that you respect them enough to follow their instructions, which will strengthen your bond.

Thirdly, functioning mentoring relationships are worthwhile. It’s no good mentees asking for advice and not following through. One of the most frustrating things for me as a mentor is when people ignore my guidance. It’s hard watching someone fail and knowing that you tried to help them. If a mentor is dedicating time and energy to you, you should feel obligated to give their advice a chance and actually try it.

And lastly, functioning mentoring relationships are in the diary. If you want a senior banker to be committed to you, you both need to get in the habit of meeting up regularly. It doesn’t have to be a formal meeting – I would meet my first mentor for cigars and scotch after work about once a month. Usually, a setting outside of work is best so you can both relax and talk candidly. Make meeting your mentor a priority – you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this relationship. Good luck!

The author is a former Goldman Sachs managing director and blogger at the site What I Learnt on Wall Street.

Follow @MadameButcher
Have a story or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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