There is light at the end of the tunnel – particularly if you work in banks’ struggling fixed income trading businesses. This is the week of Barclays’ Financial Services Conference, and the banks presenting there have all been saying optimistic things.
First came Citigroup. Citi CFO John Gerspach said on Monday that he expects Citi’s fixed income and equities trading revenues to be ‘roughly flat’ in the third quarter compared to the same period of 2013. Then came Barclays. Barclays’ investment bank CEO Tom King said (also on Monday) that, “September seems to have the hallmarks of what could be a nice, attractive month, we’re seeing a bit of volatility in the trading business and the issuance calendar is robust.” This was followed by Credit Suisse, whose CFO David Mathers disclosed that: “Revenues in the investment bank in July and August were up on the same period last year.”
Marianne Lake, CFO at JPMorgan, also offered some heartening words for fixed income traders who are prepared to wait a bit longer. Their time will come again, said Lake at the Barclays Conference yesterday. “There may be greener pastures in the second half [of 2015],” she said. “When things change, they can change very, very quickly, so we want to be positioned for that.” So, no FICC job cuts at JPMorgan then.
Separately, students who are wondering where to get a finance internship should probably apply to PWC as some sort of safety net. The Economist reports that the professional services firm will be looking for no fewer than 10,000 interns at university freshers’ weeks in the months to come. We assume that this figure is global, but still.
Meanwhile:
Jamie Dimon is working even though he’s being treated for cancer. He has a raspy throat, a great sense of humour and is, “frighteningly present.” (Bloomberg)
Barclays has hired a new generation of M&A banker: Richard Casavechia from Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a tax expert who knows how to structure cross border deals. (Financial Times)
Pimco has been hiring mortgage structurers and real estate bankers from Deutsche, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs. Recruiting bankers seems to be part of its strategy. (Financial News)
A multi-strategy private equity fund has hired a managing director from Credit Suisse. (PE Hub)
Jerome Kerviel has secured a job at an IT consultancy firm and hopes to resume “a completely normal life.” (Telegraph)
Lawmakers in the European parliament have said they’ll be vetoing anyone who’s nominated for the next EU financial services chief unless that person cracks down on cash allowances as an alternative to bonuses. (Financial Times)
“If you look at financial services, 90 percent of the customers for the very successful Scottish financial services sector – which accounts for about 15 percent of our exports – they are in England. So the financial services sector will undoubtedly migrate to England.” (CNBC)
RBS could carve out its Scottish business (which Bernstein estimates has £30bn of loans) and rename it Bank of Scotland. RBS would leave its name and £20bn of loans in Scotland and rename the English part NatWest. (Financial Times)
Corporations aren’t hiring enough weirdos. (Businessweek)
The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work. (Paul Graham)
What not to do as a first year analyst at Citigroup. (Instagram)
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