Coming off a highly litigious year and a historically frustrating fiscal quarter, JPMorgan is reeling. The bank is now said to be facing more layoffs than had originally been planned along with the possibility that it may soon need a new figurehead to run the business.
JPMorgan may need to cut as many as 10,000 more jobs than had been previously announced, according to the New York Post. While the report is rather vague, citing a prediction from wave-making analyst Dick Bove, several business units may indeed require pruning. Fixed income, futures trading, technology, mortgage and consumer banking departments have recently been targeted as bloated units and are all at risk.
“I don’t know with certainty, but these cuts can happen fast,” Dove told the Post.
All the turmoil JPMorgan has faced in recent years – from the London Whale trading scandal to its recent plummet in FICC trading revenue – has surely burnt some tread off Jamie Dimon’s tires. The bank’s chief executive, who has walked through several firestorms and come out clean on the other side, may eventually just wave the white flag and call it a career, Bove said. “I am starting to believe that this point does exist,” he told the Post.
While it’s hard to envision JPMorgan without Dimon at the helm – and there are plenty of people in the business who would reject Bove’s assessment – it’s worth wondering how many qualified candidates would be willing to accept the vacancy.
Dimon’s once-likely successor, Michael Cavanagh, ditched the company earlier this year for a non-CEO role at private equity giant Carlyle. Those close to Cavanagh noted the brutal environment facing big bank CEOs as one of his reasons for bypassing the likely opportunity to run JPMorgan.
Indeed, banks beyond JPMorgan are having serious trouble recruiting willing and qualified candidates to grace their executive ranks. Media and political scrutiny, along with the likelihood of ending up in front of Senate subcommittees, is deterring many from considering top banking jobs, according to a new Financial Times report. Barclays and RBS each have soon-to-be-vacant chairman roles that are eliciting little interest, for example.
Banking executives face pressures they never felt pre-crisis – and they don’t get paid as much either. A bad combination.
Job Market Pulse (eFinancialCareers)
In the latest hiring roundup, Carlyle is adding to its solutions team, U.S. boutique Moelis is eyeing new recruits and two big banks are making surprising hires in FICC.
Bonus Structure (eFinancialCareers)
Here’s how your pay would be structured if you earned a bonus of $250k, $500k and $1 million at JPMorgan.
Adena Friedman, chief financial officer at Carlyle, is leaving to join Nasdaq. She’s now positioned as the front-runner to succeed Robert Greifeld as CEO when he retires.
Slowing Down HFT Firms (Bloomberg)
High-speed trading firms should be required to register with regulators to make sure they aren’t squeezing the market.
BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse are begging U.S. prosecutors to refrain from charging them criminally over recent transgressions. Their pleas are not being heard by receptive ears.
Giving Back (Business Insider)
Equities trading firm BTIG is hosting its annual Commissions for Charity event, which enlists the help of celebrities to raise millions for the needy. You can call in and make a trade with Matt Dillon, Eli Manning or Shaquille O’Neal.
Hedge funds are now testing the brainwaves of employees to learn how they tick and better improve their trading strategies.
Buzz Around the Office
If you take the Metro North train home to Connecticut every night, we’ve got some bad news: you’re going to have to do it sober from now on. The bar car has been retired, and Wall Streeters aren’t handling it very well.
Quote of the Day: “Fish stinks from the head down, more precisely, that’s the head of CEO Brady Dougan.” – a Credit Suisse shareholder calling for the resignation of the bank’s chief executive
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