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Senior risk professionals are empowered. These days they have their own reporting structure to the head of the business, intervene heavily in pay decisions, and can’t be overruled by obnoxious traders. They are also paid slightly more. But they are still paid a lot less than their counterparts in the front office. Last week’s banking compensation study from the Institute of International Finance and Oliver Wyman revealed that in very many... Read more

Credit Suisse and Barclays have already set the ball rolling with a few layoffs, and further trauma seems likely unless something changes drastically in the next few weeks. Personally, I avoided being laid off throughout my long and illustrious career in the City. This was partly due to consistent over performance, and partly to innate cunning. If it looks like there may be trouble ahead one of the following strategies... Read more

Given that even first year analysts in M&A are earning £67k upwards, £50k looks pitiful in investment banking terms. However, a new and (simplistic) study suggests £50k is all that’s required for a life of blissfulness: below that and you’re left wanting; above that, all the extra hours and hassle don’t contribute much in the way of happiness anyway. The study originates from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences... Read more

In a fit of political correctness, banks are eschewing prop traders. First it was JPMorgan. Now it’s Goldman Sachs. There are not places for all these prop traders in hedge funds. As we have noted previously, hedge funds are fussy about the prop traders they take on. They only want the very best. Does this mean most prop traders will be relegated to the oblivion of the spare room? Apparently not. We... Read more

You can judge whether a business is really hiring by its propensity to place very large advertisements soliciting staff in very public places. A Big Four accounting firm currently has an enormous one in Waterloo Station. On cue, PWC has come out today and said it’s got 800 new (non-graduate) jobs to fill in London and the Middle East, of which 400, at least, are in London. This is despite filling... Read more

Recruitment firm The Cornell Partnership has helpfully assembled some figures on average compensation for M&A analysts in 2010. Even better, the assembled figures show how analysts are generally paid on a bank by bank basis. The conclusion? They best payers are typically Deutsche, Credit Suisse and Citi. The worst are consistently Morgan Stanley and BoA Merrill Lynch. Analyst 1 Deutsche: Mean bonus - £31.5k. Total comp - £76.5. Credit Suisse: Mean bonus... Read more

So kiddo, you fancy your chances as a trader? Maybe you’re a fresh faced grad with an analytical mind, straight out of your PhD in Astrophysics? Perhaps you’re a mathematically inclined accountant who trades CFD’s in her spare time or places the odd spread bet on the FTSE 100? Almost every week the Evening Standard runs a story about how a group of traders just dropped £50k on bottles of champagne... Read more

Investment strategy is crucial to a hedge fund’s success. Having unearthed someone capable of devising a good one, it might therefore seem inevitable that a fund will make them a full time employee. Not always. According to one hedge fund specialist headhunter, some funds are now willing to employ strategists on a freelance basis, and to allow them to reside many miles from the mother ship. “People are getting paid to... Read more

Banking is not the only industry where people receive bonuses. Bonuses are also offered in other professions. And in other professions there is no obligation to defer bonuses over multiple years, to claw them back, to base them on risk adjusted measures of performance, or to subject them to punitive forms of taxation. Then again, bonuses in other industries tend to be a lot lower. Bonuses in law firms Lawyers’... Read more

Daniel Palmer, the newly appointed head of international equity derivatives in global capital markets at Morgan Stanley is living embodiment of the notion that enormous and enduring guarantees don’t work. Palmer used to work at Morgan Stanley, back in the 1990s. However, Financial News says he left for HSBC in 2004, lured by a guarantee rumoured to be worth $15m over three years. What happened next? Palmer stayed at HSBC until his... Read more

As has been widely reported JPMorgan is following the elimination of its some of its commodities salespeople and traders with the obliteration of its commodities prop business and likely closure of equities and fixed income prop trading business. The Financial Times reports that JPMorgan has 20 commodities prop traders, 19 of whom are in London and one of whom is in New York. Now, this does not seem a large number of... Read more

Candover has thrown in the towel. It revealed yesterday that it intends to wind up its investments and pursue dissolution. Candover already employs far fewer people than at its peak. Back in the good old days we’re informed there were 102 people working there; now there’s 39. “No decisions have been taken yet on whether there will be any further slimming down of the team,” reassures a spokeswoman. “We will make... Read more

The absolutely perfect CV for any front office job in an investment bank, WILL…. 1) Have impeccable academics- Top grades from a top school are a totally necessary but absolutely non-sufficient condition for front office occupations. “Good academics are taken for granted,” reflects Andrew Pullman, former head of HR at Dresdner, turned managing consultant at People Risk Solutions. 2) Make a big deal out of the impeccable academics- “Most other candidates will... Read more

Needless to say, investment banks have massively increased front office salaries. Boutiques, which were immensely popular as employers immediately after the (first wave of the) financial crisis, generally haven’t. As a result, they are considerably less appealing as employers than they once were. However, now that banks are starting to look shaky and make redundancies, some boutiques are trying to reinvent themselves as the virtuous face of moderation. Evolution, for example,... Read more

Weird: Credit Suisse managing directors are to receive a cash award on the 1st of September to compensate for last year’s 30% cut in their bonuses thanks to the UK bonus tax. This is odd because: - Banks are not usually given to making mass retention payments unless they’re in the throes of a merger or moment of upheaval. - Credit Suisse doesn’t look like it can afford it. Its compensation ratio is already 50%... Read more

Nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to the toxic bonuses Credit Suisse awarded in early 2009. For the whole of last year, the Credit Suisse toxic bonus pool reportedly made a very handsome annual return of 72%. Now, Financial News reports that the total return since last year’s inception is 60%, implying a reduction of around 7% since January. Although interest is paid out annually at 2.5%,... Read more

Jean-Rene Bourlot is back. According to the Financial Times, he’s joining UBS as head of commodities. This is because, after closing its commodities team a year ago, UBS is….rebuilding it again. But who is Jean? And why is he so, ‘colourful’? 1) He’s a graduate of the European business school in Paris Jean Boulot is French. As such, he appears to have gone to this Parisian business school. Surprisingly, it is not... Read more