If you’re worried about what might happen if you lose your job in banking, you probably don’t want to dwell too long on the case of Amit Goyal, the former (global) head of FICC strategies structuring at UBS.
Back in 2009, Goyal had just joined UBS in his global role after an eight year City career. He was earning ‘up to £300k’ ($435k) a year (which seems low compared to contemporary pay for senior structurers at Bank of America, but still). He had a PhD from INSEAD and had also worked for Barclays, Deutsche Bank and ABN AMRO, having played the game of skipping jobs every two years.
Seven years on, Goyal has no job and no assets save £19k in UBS shares. Penniless, he lives on government benefits. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority register indicates that he left UBS in September 2012 and he hasn’t worked since.
Fortunately, Goyal is not entirely typical of the average banker who loses his job. In 2012, he tried and failed to claim that his then-wife, Ankita, hadn’t married him but someone else with the same name. He also managed to rack up £650k of debts through an addiction to spread-betting. Ankita, who was once a headhunter and is now a beauty therapist, divorced Goyal in 2011 and yesterday succeeded in gaining control of his remaining assets.
Goyal’s comprehensive fall from grace may be more dramatic than that of most former traders, but is nonetheless a cautionary tail. During an earlier divorce hearing involving Goyal, the judge noted that, “there was a constant circulation amongst the traders of information and tips about spread bets, with a strong peer pressure to participate…those who declined the invitation were laughed at as wimps.” Goyal isn’t the first UBS trader to fall foul of spread bets: Kweku Adoboli lost £123k on them too.
Separately, Reuters says things are looking up for the second quarter. Revenues in May were seemingly an improvement upon revenues in April and most bank CEOs have been making optimistic noises. FICC should be good, equities less so.
Meanwhile:
JPMorgan’s annual income from the U.K. is close to $8 billion, dwarfing the $92 million it makes in Germany or its $42 million of French revenue. (Bloomberg)
Morgan Stanley: expanding in Hungary. (BBJ)
If Brexit happens, Citi says it will move some people away from London and Belfast. (Guardian)
Citi: “To continue to serve our clients and maintain efficient access to those markets currently enabled through the EU passporting regime, we would likely need to rebalance our operations across the EU.” (Reuters)
Deutsche Bank just hired Philippe Henry, a former equities structurer from Morgan Stanley. (Financial News)
Goldman Sachs’ head of cross-border mergers and acquisitions, James Del Favero, is retiring from the firm after nearly three decades. (Business Insider)
Barclays is trying to attract US bankers who’ve taken career breaks. (Reuters)
A source at Goldman said the bank was cutting more than 10 percent of its staff in Russia and the bulk of the cuts would be in the investment banking division due to a lack of deals. (Reuters)
73% of CFA jobs seem to pay less than $100k. ‘“It does have a mild signaling effect to me this one’s a hard worker.’ (Bloomberg)
When you’re a London banker who’s been made redundant, you go down the pub. (Bloomberg)
Banks banned from supporting gay rights in Singapore. (Financial Times)
Jerome Kerviel is the man. (NY Times)
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Photo credit: UBS UK office by felissy is licensed under CC BY 2.0.b