There was a time, not long ago, when a lot of the jobs at Bank of America seemed to be going to ex-Goldman bankers. Ex-Goldmanite Thomas Montag hired in people like Sanaz Zaimi and William Roberts. When you left Goldman, BofA was the place to go. Now it looks a little like Goldman Sachs might be getting its own back: it’s been hiring a few people from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML).
The Financial Conduct Authority register reveals that Goldman has brought in Roger Clark, a futures and options salesman who spent over a decade at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Goldman has also hired Lawrence Hume, an equity derivatives trader who left BAML after two years in July.
Two hires don’t make a torrent, but Goldman’s also hired a few other BAML bankers this summer. They include Jan Janssen, a former director in BAML’s real estate team, Usman Naeem, a former vice president in BAML’s equity derivatives team, and Pushkar Jha, a former associate on BAML’s rates trading desk.
Bank of America hasn’t been Goldman’s only hunting ground. In the past few months, it’s also hired Paul Coles, an ex-Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers special situations banker and Jonathan Stevens, an oil trader from Morgan Stanley. Is this indicative of a new trend in which Goldman hires talent in from external sources (as opposed to growing it internally)? The bank declined to comment. Notably, however, Goldman has also shifted two New York-based bankers (Thomas Munk and Jonathan Stevens) to London, and has moved one agricultural trader (Kay Wee Tan) from Singapore, suggesting internal ‘talent migration’ is still a thing.
Despite it being August, there’s also been a bit of hiring elsewhere. Citigroup has recruited Didier Sarpong, a former FX salesman who has escaped Barclays’ investment bank. It’s also hired James Wheatcrof, a small and mid-cap equities analyst (travel and leisure) from Jefferies.
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