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Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman has been an intermittent source of advice for ambitious young bankers over the ages, recommending, for example, that they “pace themselves,” spend some time working overseas, and care partly about themselves and partly about the corporation in equal amounts. Now guru Gorman has issued a new insight: if you didn’t experience the last financial crisis, you need to watch yourself.

“It really helps to be a little paranoid and a little scarred,” Gorman said at a conference on culture run by the New York Federal Reserve yesterday. “Forget about what the regulators want, what the public want, what the politicians want; we don’t want [another crisis],” he added.

The trouble for anyone who entered banking after 2008 is that they have no scars from the 2008 crisis, said Gorman. They can suffer the, “tyranny of success,” said Gorman and presume that because things have been ok, they will remain so.

This would seem apply to almost everyone under 30 in finance. However, Gorman’s real fears are for the neophytes coming into banking now and next year, who will become the VPs and MDs of the future. Here, he warned that “grade creep”, or grade inflation, is at work as people experience a growing sense of security, “My fear is . . . those people who haven’t been through the last 10 plus years . . . the crisis, the post-crisis, the [London] Whale, all the other stuff that has happened since,” he said. “Fifteen years from now, will management come to work every day with sufficient scarring or not?”

At the very least, unscarred bankers might be advised to read widely on the crisis and its causes in the hope of achieving some vicarious wounds.

Separately: don’t mess with bond manager Bill Gross. Following the revelation that Bill’s wife substituted one of his Picassos for a replica she painted herself, the New York Post reports allegations from his wife to the effect that Gross sprayed aromas called Liquid Ass and BARFume around the house before he moved out. “The houseplants smelled foul and need to be replaced,” said Sue Gross, who subsequently got a restraining order against her former husband. Gross is also said to have placed a dead fish in the air vents.

Meanwhile:

Winton Capital is spinning out its data company, Hivemind. (Financial Times)

Odey Asset Management is parting company with its sales directors. (HFMWeek)

Credit Suisse has increased its global headcount in leveraged finance to 124 so far in 2018, an increase of 13% from the end of last year. Staff rose by 14% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and by 12% in the Americas. (Bloomberg)

Want to work for Google? It helps to be Asian. (NYT)

A charity founded by a 24-year-old Goldman Sachs analyst Hamza Farrukh that aims to provide water to poor, rural communities in Pakistan and to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, won a $150,000 grant from the bank. (Business Insider)

The CME keeps the computers that run its exchange in Aurora, Illinois, making it among the most important nodes in the global financial system. (Bloomberg)

Even a single night of poor sleep can cause changes in the brain implicated in Alzheimer’s. (New Scientist)

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If Generation Z are supposed to want flexibility and work-life balance, someone forgot to communicate this to the young people who are turning up to work in banks this summer: they expect to work hard and are already fully psyched-up to do so.

“I’m ready to work long hours,” says a summer analyst who’s joining Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division (IBD). “It will probably be up until midnight, but maybe until 1am or 2am.” Another intern, who’s joining Rothschild is even more ambitious: “I expect to work from 9am to 2am,” he says. “It’s not constant work throughout and you do get a bit of downtime, but I’ve been told the work doesn’t really get started until the later hours anyway.”

All of the incoming 2018 interns we spoke to discussed their expectations for the summer on anonymous basis. Banks require them to sign contracts agreeing not to speak to the media.- Intern working hours are a touchy subject ever since Bank of America IBD intern Moritz Erhardt died of natural causes after working for an alleged 72 hours straight in 2013.

Since then, some – but not all – banks have imposed restrictions on the number of hours interns can work. Goldman Sachs, for example, issued an edict in 2015 stating that interns have to stay out of the office between midnight and 7am on weekdays; this still stands. Bank of America interns are not supposed to work between midnight and 9am, or to work weekends.

At other banks, long hours for interns are less heavily proscribed. At J.P. Morgan, for example, interns are expected to work the same hours as other employees (who get one full weekend off each month), although interns’ hours are also carefully monitored and reported to HR weekly. At Morgan Stanley, there are no restrictions at all, but interns’ working practices are again carefully watched.

Hours are longest in investment banking divisions. Interns in other banking divisions are less ready for a summer of sleep-deprivation. One intern coming into Goldman Sachs’ operations division said she expects to work from 9am to 7pm on weekdays only. Another intern arriving on Morgan Stanley’s trading floor, said he expects 6.30am to 6pm to be the norm.

None of the interns we spoke to were compelled to put in 10 to 17 hour days by the banks they’re working for. They were all choosing to. “It’s the culture of the team,” said the Rothschild intern. “It’s just implicit.” An intern at Morgan Stanley said he’d been invited to sign a form agreeing to work more than 48 hours a week (this is the norm under the European working time directive) and had done so. – In an industry where over 100 people are chasing each job, refusing to sign is a death knell for your future banking career.

Interns are well paid for their commitment. This year, the going rate for 10-12 weeks at a big bank over the summer in London is £50k ($66k) pro-rated (ie around £970 a week), plus a £1k signing bonus. Last year, some interns told us they received £48k pro-rated for their internships, so intern pay appears to be rising.

Even so, new interns are advised to be mindful of their health. Last year, an IBD intern who regularly worked until 4am complained of gaining weight and losing friends. In 2016, a doctor was summoned to Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt when a young banker (not an intern) collapsed at 2.30am. He’d come into the office and stayed late despite feeling unwell because he was working on a live deal.

This summer’s interns may not necessarily get to work on live deals, but they will have the thrill of competing for a job offer. In doing so, they need to pace themselves – and to remember that it’s not just about being first in and last out. Receiving an offer at the end of a summer internship is also about networking and establishing which teams are and aren’t hiring: you can work all the 17 hour days you like, but it will make no difference if the team you’re in doesn’t need to recruit any juniors for 2019.

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A decade ago, an MBA was clearly the top qualification to have if you wanted to start down the path toward a high-level job in banking. Then quietly, more top business schools began offering an alternative: the cheaper, more technical master’s in finance degree. By 2015, hiring totals suggested that a master’s in finance may actually have trumped the MBA as the top qualification. However, new data shows that MBA programs may be having a renaissance of sorts, at least when it comes to compensation.

Comparing salary expectations for MBA holders versus those with a master’s in finance is a difficult task. While MBA programs usually require some previous professional experience, you can often enter a master’s in finance program directly from undergraduate studies. This means an MBA should demand a higher starting salary than a master’s degree, and in fact it does. But MBA holders are also now seeing greater increases in salary post-graduation than they did previously. The picture is more muddled for recent master’s of finance graduates.

Some degree holders at eight of the top 15 master’s in finance programs recently ranked by the FT reported lower annual salaries after three years of experience than those who graduated one year earlier. This only occurred with two of the top 15 global MBA programs – IESE Business School in Spain and the University of Cambridge, both of which ranked outside the top 10.

Meanwhile, graduates of every top 15 MBA program but one reported at least a 100% increase in salary from the time they entered the program to three years after earning their degree. Even graduates from IESE and Cambridge Judge saw their salaries more than double over that period, and the growth rates happened to be higher for the previous year’s class. That’s a stark difference from just a few years earlier, when graduates of every top MBA program reported three-year salary increases that were lower percentage-wise than the previous year. The value of an MBA appears to be on the rise.

When it came to the Masters in Finance courses where students didn’t have prior professional experience, the FT compared the starting salaries directly following graduation to what degree holders were making after three years. Among top schools, graduates from first-ranked HEC Paris saw the biggest three-year salary bump of 82%. The master’s program at the U.K.’s Imperial College Business School fared the worst, with graduates only earning a 43% increase in pay over three years. Imperial College alumni from 2015 now earn an average of $92k, meaning their starting salary was around $65k after graduation. At HEC, it was around $75k.

For MBAs, sticking around pays

There are several possible explanations for the new narrative that top MBAs are still a good deal. A masters qualification is well-aligned with lucrative sales and trading jobs, fewer of which exist now than in years previous. And of course, not as many MBAs enter banking as often as in previous years; many now take jobs in tech and consulting, so pay could be rising due to scarcity value. But the data seems to reject the premise that other industries are out-paying finance professionals, particularly in the early years for those who went to top schools.

Business schools that are the chief feeders into finance – Stanford, Wharton, Booth, Harvard and Stern – all saw their graduates who remained in the industry take home bigger salaries than those who left or never entered finance in the first place. Graduates of all five with the exception of Stern earned salaries north of $200k if they stuck around for three years.

Banks are thirsty for masters candidates

Perhaps the best news for master’s of finance grads is that they are clearly in high demand. Over 95% of students from nine of the top 10 programs had a job within three months of graduation, with four schools sporting 100% employment rates. For top MBA programs, the highest employment rate was 95% (Booth), while several languished in the 80%-90% range.

If you have little or no experience, a master’s in finance appears a near-lock to find a decent job in the industry. But it still pays to have an MBA. You just need to land a job first and handle the culture of banking for more than a couple years.

Follow @BeecherTuttle

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Jefferies has just released its results for the second quarter of 2018. If you work for a bank, their message is mixed.

1. Good times for fixed income traders did not last

Firstly, it turns out that the great first quarter for fixed income traders may have been no more than that: the second quarter took a distinct turn for the worse.

In Q1, Jefferies’ fixed income revenues more than doubled on the final three months of 2017, going from $101m to $213m. In Q2, however, Jefferies’ fixed income revenues shriveled nearly back to where they started at $119m. To add insult to injury, they were also 23% lower than the second quarter of 2017.

Fixed income traders who thought their time had come may have to rethink.

2. Given half an excuse, banks will cut pay

Jefferies’ 3,348 employees have had a pay cut. Last year, they each averaged $274k in salaries and bonuses for the first half. This year, they’re down to $262k.

The fall in pay follows the addition of 114 people in the past year. It also comes as Jefferies booked a provisional tax charge of $160m as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which all but wiped out its first-quarter post-tax profits.

3. Equities trading revenues are weirdly steady

If fixed income trading revenues are shrinking back to their previous lows, at Jefferies at least, equities revenues are holding up. They were $175m in Q218 compared to $174m a year earlier.

4. Bankers are resurgent and hiring senior investment bankers makes good sense

As Bloomberg notes, Jefferies’ Q2 results help confirm Jefferies’ transformation from a trading house to an advisory and capital markets house. While trading revenues were weak to flat in the second quarter, investment banking division revenues rose significantly (up 43% in M&A and equity capital markets and up 40% in debt capital markets).

This follows years of M&A banker hiring by Jefferies which has helped propel the firm up the league tables. Who said senior bankers don’t perform when they’re transplanted to other firms?

5. Traders are finding it harder to turn a profit

Lastly, Jefferies results suggest a whiff of desperation on the trading floor. While the bank’s combined fixed income and equities trading revenues were down 12% year-on-year in the second quarter, the number of trading days on which Jefferies made a loss tripled from three to nine.

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Morgan Stanley is all about the three Cs: collaboration, communication and coordination. This is very much reflected in its approach to diversity, particularly when it’s championing the cause of its female workforce.

“It’s a very collegiate atmosphere here. People want to help you learn and grow,” says Sonali Siriwardena, an Executive Director in the Institutional Equities Division of Morgan Stanley. “Whether you’re in a junior role or a senior executive, all views and ideas are valued.”

A shining example of this collaborative approach is the Women’s Business Alliance (WBA), which is the largest network in the Firm. Its mandate is to encourage the career development of women within Morgan Stanley. But it’s not just about the female staff members working together; engaging male colleagues in the discussion is equally important in closing the gender gap.

“We need to partner with men and women across all corporate levels to foster a sense of community and champion the cause of addressing any in-balance within the Firm or the wider financial industry,” says Siriwardena, who has been a member of the WBA since she joined Morgan Stanley in 2011.

This stretches all the way to the top of the Firm; new Head of EMEA Clare Woodman is a vocal champion of diversity and inclusion and has mandated all heads of business to proactively work to address the gender imbalance at senior ranks.

“This translates into key performance indicators for senior management – how they manage their teams and how gender is represented within their core function and wider division,” adds Siriwardena.

Internal mobility is another key focus for Morgan Stanley and Siriwardena is a good example of this fact. A lawyer by training, she recently transferred from the Legal Division to Institutional Equities. “One of the advantages of working in a big Firm such as Morgan Stanley is that there are often opportunities to move internally if you are willing to explore new challenges,” says Siriwardena.

Naomi Strong has worked her way up through the Firm from a summer intern to an Executive Director in the Sales and Trading Division within the space of just nine years. She is proud to have made this progress thanks to her ability and work ethic, combined with the support of Morgan Stanley’s market-leading equities franchise and the leaders within it. But she is equally proud of the fact that “There’s now a healthy split of 50/50 men and women in the graduate scheme across many divisions, which wasn’t the case when I joined, so positive progress is being made.”

But both she and Siriwardena concede there’s more to do. “The split in my division on our graduate programmes is 50/50, and while some areas aren’t quite there yet, our target across the Firm in EMEA is 50/50. We are also working hard to ensure it is reflected in our experienced hiring at senior levels. We partner with Human Resources to increase the hiring and retention of women at all levels. We organise numerous career development events and access to senior role models. Most importantly we help women increase and leverage their internal and external networks.”

At the end of last year, Morgan Stanley announced that under the UK’s Shared Parental Leave policy, individuals who share the main responsibility for childcare will now be entitled to the same level of benefit in the first six months. This was in addition to doubling paternity leave to four weeks. “This allows women to continue their career, and can hopefully shift the culture in terms of the mind-set,” says Strong.

This flexibility also extends to working practices. There is an acknowledgement within the Firm that flexible working is doable, as long as jobs are completed. “With new technology, your role doesn’t have to involve sitting at a desk all day,” says Strong. “The Firm encourages us to have a manageable work-life mix and excel in our careers.”

Siriwardena has even managed to complete two Ironman Triathlons (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a marathon) recently. “It’s not the race that kills you, it’s the training,” she laughs. “But my team have been very supportive throughout. I’ve raised money for several charities and the Firm recognised my efforts by contributing through a matched funding programme.”

In addition to the WBA, Morgan Stanley also has a further seven employee diversity networks to enhance employee engagement and advance the Firm’s overall culture of inclusion from the Pride & Ally Network to the African and Caribbean Business Alliance. “People are encouraged to interact, learn and support each other and proactively build relationships outside of their immediate business area.” says Siriwardena.

The Diversity Action Council (DAC) acts as a catalyst to drive forward the diversity strategy and agenda in EMEA. It comprises some 20 Managing Directors who meet monthly to discuss strategic diversity initiatives across all business lines. The DAC recently held a series of small-group sessions to talk openly about progress made and get ideas on future focus areas. It’s not just a top down strategy, but about engaging everyone,” stresses Strong.

Each staff member is valued, no matter what their education, background or views. “This goes a huge way to nurturing a person both as a professional and a human being,” says Siriwardena. “I don’t feel stifled to fit in or conform to a particular norm. We are all competent technically, but it is more about how we work together to enrich the Firm’s culture with diverse views and insights.”

Strong agrees. “You don’t have to be a particular type of person to succeed here. We are all quite different. But that diversity of thought is exactly what makes us more effective with clients and has helped us grow leading businesses.”

“We can also push boundaries and continue learning together. Even with all the technological and regulatory changes happening in our industry, this is still a people business, and they are our greatest asset.”

Remember Qube Research and Technologies? It’s the $1bn quantitative and systematic hedge fund that spun out of Credit Suisse last year. It’s hiring.

Since the start of 2018, QRT insiders say the fund has increased its headcount by 15%, or 20 people. By the end of this year, it plans to add another 20, split equally between its offices in London, Paris and Hong Kong.

“We’re in a period of growth,” says one senior QRT insider, speaking on an anonymous basis. “We are raising money as an independent asset manager and are very much in recruitment mode. We are heavily focused on hiring for our research and technology teams.”

Most of QRT’s current 150 employees previously worked for the fund when it was still known as ‘Credit Suisse quantitative and systematic asset management.’ Many worked for SocGen before that. Some of the newer hires, however, have been drawn from further afield. Last month, for example, QRT hired Iain Raskin from UBS as a quant trading director in Hong Kong. In April, it hired Javier Escribano as COO in the London office. In October 2017 it hired Marco Dion, formerly head of central risk book trading at J.P. Morgan.

While quant funds like Winton have a reputation for hiring quantum physicists and applying their expertise to financial markets, QRT insiders say the fund is more about hiring excellent technologists and researchers with a finance background. “We’re recruiting traders as well, but they’re less important than previously,” says one senior insider. “In future, we expect to have fewer traders and more technologists and researchers.”

QRT isn’t alone in looking for systematic trading talent. As we’ve pointed out, Goldman Sachs is also hiring for its quant execution team under Michael Steliaros, and J.P. Morgan just hired a trader who left Nomura in 2016 to handle systematic equities trading for its central risk book.

This might be why the flow of staff at QRT goes two ways. Christophe Farès Wakim, a former quantitative equity portfolio manager at QRT, left in May and is now on gardening leave. Insiders say there have also been other exits, albeit many of them last year, before QRT span out. Some, like Benajimin Filippi and Ryan Sandor have recently turned up at ExodusPointCapital, the $7bn hedge fund set up by Michael Gelband, the former star trader at Izzy Englander’s Millennium Capital – which is also hiring.

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In recent years, equities trading has looked like the dystopian scenes at the start of The Terminator, with human beings stuck in increasingly precarious niches, hiding from the high frequency and algorithmic systems who are taking over their world. But has the Human Resistance found its moment?

Tidjane Thiam has probably not been sent back in time by a group of embattled cash equities traders to turn back the course of history, but it may end up being significant that a bank which had historically been in the vanguard of algo trading is now openly discussing how important its high-touch and block-trading businesses are, and the high-profile MD level hires it has been making to support them. Meanwhile, JP Morgan has hired a senior trader and salestrader in Europe and in the last month, Bank of America has poached David Kim as its (human) head of flow trading.

In the case of Credit Suisse, the new strategy appears to be driven by Mike Stewart, the global head of equities trading who joined last summer from UBS. It has also been driven by necessity – Stewart was brought in to replace Tim O’Hara in the wake of some sharp market share losses, partly driven by algorithmic trading misfires And market share in cash equities just isn’t as valuable as it used to be, given the extremely low spreads.

So banks are looking for profits back in the business of block trading, and this is much more of a people business. Algorithms with high-frequency data feeds can tell you a lot about what can be deduced about supply and demand from what’s trading, but it’s a lot more difficult to get a sense of what the market clearing price might be for blocks of securities among people who are not currently trading, but might be persuaded to do so if the price was right.

To do that requires the sort of knowledge of investors’ positions that only comes from a fairly intimate trusted-advisor relationship; block trading is the point of contact where sales and trading blends into capital markets and advisory. And high-touch sales trading is just block trading with smaller blocks. They’re both concerned not so much with facilitating trades that the client wants to make, as with suggesting trades that the client didn’t know she wanted to make until someone passed on some information about another potential buyer or seller. For the moment, that’s quite hard to automate, and to the right kind of investor it’s extremely valuable.

Separately, anyone holding US bank shares might be in for a dividend or buyback windfall this year, as the indications are that, despite incorporating the harshest macroeconomic scenarios seen so far, the CCAR results, to be published on Friday, won’t see any major US lenders’ cash distribution plans refused. Payout ratios of 96% are being talked about. The US banks’ ability to do this is partly because they have built back capital buffers aggressively from the strong profits of the last few years, but it also might be that they are learning, slowly to give the Fed what it wants to see.

As American Banker puts it, “banks have developed a certain amount of expertise over the years” in creating regulatory scenarios. Added to this, the rules have changed this time round so that the dreaded and unpredictable “qualitative fail” based on inadequate systems of planning, is no longer considered a reason for the Fed to stop dividend payments. Of course, non-US banks have been significantly slower to develop that sort of expertise, and so we might expect to see quite a few failures among the foreign Bank Holding Companies being tested for the first time. But even the Europeans will eventually find out how to work within the system.

Meanwhile:

Softbank is planning to set up a new employee long term incentive scheme, and to invest it in the Vision Fund. (FT)

Gender pay gaps look much worse at Magic Circle law firms when equity partners are included in the data. (FT)

Rich millennials (they exist) want advice on cryptocurrency from their wealth managers. (Bloomberg)

But John McAfee has stopped advising over Twitter on crypto ICOs after “threats from the SEC” (Fortune)

Robots may not be able to handle block trading, but they can solve a Rubik Cube on their own. (Technology Review)

Deutsche Bank has shifted a $1bn portfolio of shipping loans. (FT)

BoA Merrill Lynch has paid a $42m fine to settle a case over misleading customers about its dark pool. (Reuters)

German savings banks are withdrawing their most expensive accounts, to the rage of savers. (Handelsblatt)

Beware of financial PTSD. (Of Dollars and Data)

Image credit: davidf, Getty

Lately, I’ve been interviewing some candidates for a junior analyst role at my firm. As you would expect, we want smart individuals who can think outside the box. We want dedicated people who are willing to put in the hard work required to do in-depth analysis (i.e. grunt work). People who have a desire to learn. And most importantly, people who are passionate about investing. This is just my opinion and others may disagree, but telling me about your mock portfolio doesn’t demonstrate passion for investing.

It’s not the size of the portfolio that matters

I get it. You’re young and you’re not some trust fund baby, so you don’t have millions of your own money to invest.

It’s not the size of the portfolio that impresses me. The problem with a mock portfolio is you’re not taking any risk. You don’t have any skin in the game. Have you ever tried to play poker without real money? It’s horrible. People call bluffs left and right. It’s impossible to get people out of hands because there’s no cost when they lose.

Working at a hedge fund, we deal with real money. Not mock money. So I need you to think and act like you have something to lose. In a mock portfolio, it’s easy to say you’re going to buy high volatility names. Everybody wants to own a stock that doubles. But would you invest your own money in that stock if you knew it was just as likely to go to zero?

Similarly, it’s easy to say you’d double down when the stock is down 50%. It’s a lot harder to do when you’ve lost 50% of your hard-earned dollars and you’re worried you could lose even more.

Diversification is Important

You can’t have three names in your portfolio. And they all can’t be in the same sector. Again, I get that you may not have much money to invest. The problem with having so few names is I question your ability to understand risk. On the buy side, your #1 goal is to not lose money. If you can do that, making money will take care of itself. Having a diversified portfolio shows me that you take risk management seriously.

What’s your thesis?

If a stock is in your portfolio, you need to tell me why you like it. I don’t need a detailed model or write-up. I just want the elevator pitch on why you think it’s a good long or short. Don’t tell me your friend suggested it. If you do, I’ll ask you if your friend is interested in this role.

What did you get wrong?

When we’re talking about your diversified, non-mock portfolio, you’re going to want to talk about your winners. I, on the other hand, am going to focus on your losers. Again, this goes back to rule #1 – don’t lose money. What went wrong with the trade? Did you miss something or was it bad luck? What did you learn from the experience?

Demonstrate passion

Again, you don’t need a large portfolio to impress me. You don’t even need to be that successful (but if you’ve managed to lose money in a nine-year bull market, maybe investing isn’t your thing). What I want to see is somebody that eats, breathes, and sleeps investing. Somebody that is dedicated and willing to learn, so that they can become a great senior analyst some day.

Margin of Saving was created by an analyst at a multi-billion dollar hedge fund to help others learn how to invest and save.

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If you work in the City of London, you may not want to work for Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Conservative MP for North East Somerset is, after all, synonymous with the sort of hard Brexit that most people in financial services would prefer to avoid. Rees-Mogg is less well known, however, for his side-gig as co-founder of Somerset Capital Management, an emerging markets fund manager with around $9.6bn of assets under management.

Now is not necessarily the time to be working for an emerging market fund and Somerset Capital’s returns have historically trailed some its rivals. But the company – which says it invests in companies with, ‘the ability to earn an attractive and sustainable return on capital over the course of a business cycle’ – has several things going for it. Most notable is pay, which appears to be allocated remarkably fairly.

In the last year for which accounts are available (the 12 months to March 2017), Somerset Capital distributed £21m in profits to its members (partners). Somerset Capital had 20 members in 2017 and has 19 (current) listed employees on the FCA Register. Basically, almost everyone there is a partner. And with the highest paid of the 20 partners receiving £1m of the £21m 2017 profit pot, pay seems strangely equitable compared to many other hedge funds in London.

This fairness is intentional. “I’m a big believer in an egalitarian ownership structure,” Dominic Johnson, Somerset’s CEO and one of Mogg’s co-founders, told the Financial Times in 2013. Johnson added that Somerset deliberately kept fixed pay low (it averaged £110k five years ago) and gave everyone a stake in the fund’s performance: “We want to incentivise [our fund managers] to reduce risk in each others’ portfolios. They are a tight family, working with each other, criticising each other.”

Somerset’s close-knit, highly egalitarian environment might be why people hardly ever leave. The FCA Register suggests no one has quit for a rival firm in the past 11 years. During that time, only three people have gone in total. – Each of them seemingly retiring or leaving the industry.

So how do you get to work for the workers’ paradise founded by Mogg, Dominic Johnson and Edward Robertson in 2007?

Pedigree may help, along with political links. Robertson is the son of a former Rolls Royce Chairman. Johnson, who describes himself as a, “good capitalist”, is a close friend of David Cameron, a descendant of 17th-century statesman Lord Somers of Evesham, and an ex-Tory councillor. Other employees include Mark Asquith, a descendant of Britain’s Liberal prime minister from 1908 to 1916.

Not everyone at Somerset read classics at Oxbridge and has a rarefied aristocratic background, however. – Partners include Kumar Pandit, a Latin American analyst who graduated from Kingston Business School, and Conor Devlin in client services, who graduated from Queens University in Belfast.

The bad news is that Somerset Capital very rarely recruits senior staff: the FCA puts its last registered hire in July 2016. However, it operates a graduate recruitment program, run by partner Oliver Crawley, which recruits two to three juniors a year, typically sourced from recruitment consultants, university careers fairs and direct applications.

Somerset Capital has a lot going for it. The only downside (which some may see as an upside) is that you won’t get to work much with Rees-Mogg. He doesn’t run any money and insiders say he’s only there 30 hours a month: he’s busy doing other things.

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European banks often walk in stride with each other when it comes to U.S. strategy, investing in similar business lines while pulling back in others as appropriate. But not this year. European banks are all over the place, hiring in areas where others are firing and vice-versa. Below are the safest and the most precarious roles for U.S. bankers at five of the largest European banks. A few surprises await.

Credit Suisse

Since taking over in 2015, Tidjane Thiam has been one of the industry’s more conservative chief executives, prioritizing steadier businesses like wealth management over more volatile units like sales and trading. That’s why it came as a bit of a shock when executives told Business Insider just yesterday that it has been hiring senior traders in the U.S. while other banks have been pruning staff.

“There’s been a willingness to reduce the experience level, reduce the seniority and dilute the talent available to the buy-side,” Paul Galietto, Credit Suisse’s head of equities in the Americas, told BI. “We think that’s a mistake.” Who knew!

One interesting point of note: the recent dismantling of Dodd-Frank by the Trump administration raised the threshold on what defines a bank as being too-big-to-fail. All the big U.S. banks are still categorized this way and need to undergo stress tests and hold back more capital. Quietly, several U.S. factions of EU banks, including Credit Suisse, fell below the new threshold, meaning they can conceivably take more risks.

Credit Suisse has also increased its global headcount in leveraged finance to 124 so far in 2018, an increase of 13% from the end of last year. Staff rose by 14% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and by 12% in the Americas.

Elsewhere, Credit Suisse has been selectively cutting senior M&A bankers, though the moves appear to be centered more around performance and motivation than actual headcount reductions. Still, the bank has signaled that it won’t sit on its hands when it comes to underperforming M&A bankers. The firm has let go of at least 26 directors and MDs globally since February.

UBS

Despite somewhat sustained headwinds, UBS is pursuing a “very aggressive strategy” in the U.S., according to investment banking chief Andrea Orcel. The firm wants to double the number of senior dealmakers over the next three to five years, sources told Bloomberg. Orcel’s recruitment strategy seems to mirror that of boutiques: he wants “old-fashioned” client-facing bankers with a healthy rolodex. The Swiss firm has recently hired two senior dealmakers from Deutsche Bank and one each from RBC and Bank of America. Hopefully, they’re OK with the bank’s strict new edict that M&A bankers attend near-daily client meetings.

While UBS hasn’t moved up the M&A league tables in the Americas over the last three years, advisory fees in the region did increase 30% in 2017, Orcel said.

Meanwhile, UBS is slashing headcount within its asset management unit to focus more efforts in Asia. At least 30 positions in the U.S. have been or will be eliminated, with most coming in New York. The bank also continues to make cuts across its investment banking operations unit.

Barclays

Now appears a rather safe time to be working within Barclays’ U.S. operations. Chief Executive Jes Staley said earlier this month that the diverging political climates in the U.K. (Brexit) and the U.S. (tax cuts) are forcing Barclays to look toward the Americas for growth. He suggested that incoming regulatory changes that are more bank-friendly could play a role.

“To the extent that [the U.S. goes] down a different regulatory path, having the flexibility to recognize what’s going on across the Atlantic…I think it’s something that all of us need to consider,” Staley told the BBC. Like Credit Suisse, Barclays’ U.S. division is no longer deemed too-big-to-fail.

So far, Barclays has been doing more hiring in continental Europe as part of its post-Brexit plans. It appears the U.S. may be the next target.

Deutsche Bank

It goes without saying that Deutsche Bank is a precarious place to be if you’re a U.S. banker. They are cutting 1,000 jobs in the U.S. and 25% of global equities staffers, with the U.S. taking the brunt of the punishment. Layoffs have reportedly touched prime brokerage as well.

That said, several U.S. Deutsche bankers who work outside of equities and prime brokerage recently told us they remain rather upbeat after the bank cut some of the necessary fat. Still, no one will argue that U.S. staffers at Deutsche Bank are in the catbird seat, or anywhere near it.

HSBC

The Swiss bank signaled its intent to capitalize on the U.S. market by providing a 2020 return on equity target for its U.S. unit that’s six times that of last year. How they’ll pull that off is anyone’s guess, but new CEO John Flint has a background in retail banking and wealth management, suggesting you’d rather be working there than within HSBC’s fledging investment bank.

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The CFA exams are one of America’s most successful exports. As Donald Trump looks around for ways to make America great again, he might want to cast an eye upon a series of exams first conceived by a Wall Street analyst in 1942, which this weekend will be sat by 227,031 candidates worldwide.

The success of the three CFA exams globally isn’t all good news, though. This Saturday, just 28% of the candidates sitting the CFA will be in the Americas, down from 36% in 2011. By comparison, 53% of candidates will be based in Asia.

Asia is where the big growth is: four of the CFA’s seven new test centers for 2018 are there – in Dalian and Hangzhou in China, Hyderabad in India, and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.

The CFA Institute, which administers the exams, is all for it. In a press release today, it notes that there’s been a “20% increase in exam registrations in the past year alone”. Asian candidates have doubled since 2011; Americas candidates have risen 22% over the same period.

All growth is not necessarily good growth, however. Having begun their life as qualifications taken by portfolio managers and analysts on the buy-side, the CFA’s exams had morphed into credentials for getting front office jobs in investment banks. And yet, the CFA’s new candidates are increasingly being drawn from outside the world’s major financial centers: candidates who pass the challenging exams in Dalian or Ulaanbaatar are unlikely to go on to work in M&A at J.P. Morgan.

Anecdotally, this can lead to disappointment once the exams are over. People claiming to be CFA Charterholders complain about a lack of improvement in their job prospects; one says he’s been unemployed three years and is now teaching foreign languages for a living. In this way, are bubbles burst.

The underlying danger for the CFA Institute is that unless successful candidates put their CFA credentials to good use, the qualifications will become associated with aspiration in emerging markets rather than success in established financial centers like Wall Street and the City of London. Already, some people are suggesting that accounting qualifications or top MBAs are the better bet.

For the moment, though, the CFA Charter has one significant thing going for it when it comes to finding work on Wall Street. Thanks to the CFA’s historic affiliation with the U.S., 46% of current CFA charterholders, or nearly 71,000 people are based in the Americas. Having spent at least 900 hours studying to pass all three exams, those U.S.-based charterholders are likely to look kindly on candidates who’ve done the same. If you want to work on Wall Street, therefore, passing the CFA exams still makes sense – but the exams’ U.S. preeminence should not be taken for granted.

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OCBC has hired one of Asia’s leading cyber-security experts and the man responsible for setting up the technology crime division within the Hong Kong Police. Anthony Fung has joined OCBC’s technology information security office (TISO) as head of group red team (the unit that hacks the bank’s systems to test vulnerabilities) for cyber intelligence, forensic.

Fung previously spent more than three years at Standard Chartered in Malaysia, most recently as head of cyber forensic and threat intelligence for its global business services division, according to his public profile.

His job area, cyber and information security and intelligence, is one of the most sought after within the Singapore banking sector. Demand is being driven not just by the threat of online attacks, but also by the need to comply with increasingly vigorous regulations, such as the Cybersecurity Act, which became law in February.

DBS, UOB and Fung’s new firm, OCBC, are among the most aggressive recruiters of cyber professionals in the Singapore banking industry. They are headquartered in the Republic, so most of their group-wide cyber roles are based there. OCBC currently has four cyber analyst vacancies, for example, one within the red team.

Fung began his career as a software developer in the 1980s and then joined the Hong Kong Police in 1990. After an initial stint dealing with “robberies, criminal intimidations, murders, and scams”, he became a pioneer for online policing during the early days of the internet.

In 1997, Fung established the technology crime unit within police force, which he managed until 2004 and which investigated serious cases of cyber stalking, copyright infringement, online bank fraud and other web-bases crimes. Fung, who rose to senior inspector rank, also set up an online intelligence unit that carried out crime-trend analysis, threat assessment and technology advisory for senior management.

Before joining the banking sector with Stan Chart in 2015, Fung worked for cyber-security consultancy Stroz Friedberg in Hong Kong for just over a year. Prior to that he spent about nine years at Microsoft, latterly as a senior digital-crime unit manager for Asia Pacific, according to his profile.

Fung’s background as a developer, stint in the police force, experience at a major tech firm, consultancy job, and senior banking role at Stan Chart gave him the “perfect CV” for the OCBC position, says an IT headhunter in Singapore.

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Technology may be helping to displace equities traders in Hong Kong, but global banks there are ramping up their recruitment of technologists to build and run their equities platforms.

In 2017, for example, Credit Suisse was hiring about 50 – mainly Hong Kong-based – technologists into its Asian equity derivatives operations. “The business has an almost infinite hunger for good engineers,” Paul Gresham, CIO of APAC solutions IT at the Swiss bank, told us.

This year, banks careers websites are awash with equities technology vacancies. Goldman Sachs has 13 equities tech roles in Hong Kong, about a third of total local openings within its engineering division. It wants, for example, software developers for equities client onboarding (using its in-house Slang programming language) and data engineers for building “big data solutions to store and analyse data for the equities trading business”.

Other global firms hiring in Hong Kong include Bank of America (building its equities trading data and analytics team) and J.P. Morgan, which is adding to its global cash equities technology group (C# skills and “some experience” of Python needed).

“Asia has historically lagged behind the US and Europe in the automation of markets activities,” says former equities trader Warwick Pearmund, now associate director of emerging technologies at Pure Search in Hong Kong. “But banks are now hiring technologists in Hong Kong because this gap is closing rapidly, not only to fit in with global automation trends, but also to take advantage of regional initiatives such as China’s Stock Connect with Hong Kong.”

Banks are building “next generation trading systems” in Hong Kong using machine learning, artificial intelligence and latest in GUI (graphical user interface) technologies, says former programmer Vince Natteri, now director of recruitment at banking-tech search firm Pinpoint Asia. Equities-tech roles usually sit with the business and are not particularly vulnerable to being offshored away from Hong Kong, he adds.

Natteri says banks in Hong Kong are looking for candidates with “good fundamental programming skills (e.g. data structures and memory management) and a strong academic interest in trending technologies (e.g. DevOps and machine learning)”.

As recruitment surges, finding equities-tech talent is becoming more difficult. “Developers are in high demand, and demand outstrips supply. This partly comes down to Asia historically lagging the West in automation, ” says Pearmund. “Senior people can attract very good salaries, especially where there are specific talent gaps, such as in Delta One trading.”

Although equities-tech vacancies typically prioritise people who’ve worked in equities before, talent shortages are increasingly forcing banks to widen their nets and assess candidates based on their programming skills.

Credit Suisse’s Gresham describes his bank’s recruitment drive as “tech first”, meaning he’s open to candidates not currently working in equities, or even in the finance sector. “In contrast to many banking-tech jobs, these are agile roles we’re hiring for, bordering on extreme programming. So we need highly technical candidates who are used to working in an agile environment and using their initiative,” he adds.

Meanwhile, senior in-house HR professionals from global banks told an eFinancialCareers roundtable in Hong Kong last month that they increasingly want to take on tech candidates from outside of banking.

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What do you do when you’re banned from working in finance by the regulator after a 15 year career as a trader? How about opening a chain of fancy burger restaurants in London?

This was the route taken by Arif Hussein, trader turned UK director of Fatburger, a Dubai-based franchise selling freshly made burgers made from Halal meat. Fatburger has two outlets London outlets (Camden and Wembley) and there are plans for more. However, Fatburger’s online reviews are ‘mixed’ and Hussein admits that turning burgers into money isn’t easy: “With high rent and rates you have to sell a lot of burgers to just break even!”

Selling sterling rates swaps is probably an easier way to make money, but this is what Hussein was explicitly banned from doing in 2016 for his part in the Libor fixing scandal. In an effort to return to his previous profession, Hussein – who was a relatively junior trader despite his years of experience – has been trying to appeal the ban, arguing that he was simply told the rate to give to Libor submitters by his seniors and that his actions were, “mandated, sanctioned by the words and conduct of his senior managers and the policy of the bank.”

In a court ruling yesterday, the judge said he was sympathetic to Hussein’s case, which he described as a “tragedy” and “troubling” given that the senior traders implicated in the affair all appeared to have fled the “jurisdiction” or to have managed to, “keep their fingerprints off the relevant documents.” However, the judge upheld the ban due to a “serious error of judgment” on the part of Hussein who was initially not candid with the FCA when under oath. Hussein said this was because he feared an “enormous financial penalty, which would have put me under dire financial pressure and most likely resulted in my young family losing their home.”

For the moment, then, Hussein is stuck in the difficult business of selling burgers as he attempts to support his family. Fatburger UK’s most recent accounts (for 2016) suggest the business wasn’t profitable – although this may have changed. Sympathetic traders who want to support him, may want to send out an Uber to collect today’s lunch.

Separately, ex-Goldman Sachs COO Gary Cohn has got various options after taking his leave of Donald Trump. Vanity Fair suggests that Cohn could always get busy on the speaker circuit, where he could earn between $200k and $250k a speech. Failing that, he could write a kiss and tell story of his time with Donald Trump – although he apparently doesn’t want to do that. Or, there’s private equity. Alternatively, Cohen can always relax with the $250m+ he’s amassed already.

Meanwhile:

Former chairman of City of London Corporation says Brexit could result in the loss of 75,000 jobs and up to £10bn in annual tax revenue. (Guardian)

European commission rates paid by asset managers fell 28% thanks to MiFID II. (Financial News)

Lloyd Blankfein is frightened of Italian debt: “A lot of the leverage that was with the banks didn’t disappear from the world. They migrated over to the sovereign.” (Bloomberg)

Bank of America holds the most live patents in the blockchain space: “We don’t want to be left behind.” (Fortune)

Hedge fund manager denies he wanted to call his assistant “sugar tits.” “Inventing a false #metoo narrative about me is insane because everyone knows I didn’t go around touching people inappropriately or discriminating against anyone.” (Business Insider)

Over at Deutsche Bank: ‘…some traders misled customers about whether their orders had been fully completed so they could retain profits, and failed to correct and deliberately made errors in trade execution records to benefit themselves and the bank.’ (Financial Times)

Goldman Sachs’ new China partner came from outside the firm for the first time ever. (Reuters)

Barclays offers UK workers redundancy or redeployment opportunity in Pune, India. (Mirror)

Modern yoga and meditation practices can inflate your ego, (Quartz)

England’s upskirting ban will also apply to kilts. (Scotsman)

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As we reported earlier this week, it’s summer intern season in investment banks. Interns are mostly arriving this week and next and – if they’re working in investment banking divisions (IBD) are ready to put in 17 hour days.

This is not unrealistic – despite concerns over intern health and a hard stop at midnight for interns at Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, long hours remain the norm. One Morgan Stanley IBD intern-turned full-time analyst told us he regularly worked from 9am to 2am last summer and never left before midnight. If you’re home before 1am as an IBD intern, you’re lucky basically.

In this febrile and exhausted environment, interns themselves are starting to keep track of the best teams to work for. So far, one stands out above all others: the consumer and retail team at Credit Suisse in London. Here, there is talk of a particularly kind and considerate boss who strictly enforces a personal rule that none of his interns should work later than midnight during the week (alongside a bank-mandated rule that they should stop working at 7pm on Friday and not start again until 12pm on Saturday). “He’s very proactive,” says one intern. “In IBD, the amount of work you do is very much down to the team and the leadership. Credit Suisse’s consumer and retail team just has a very good culture.”

Who is this friend of the interns? We don’t know exactly, although Credit Suisse’s consumer and retail banking group is co-headed by Jens Welter and Andrew Van Der Vord. Der Vord rejoined last year from RBC and Welter, a CS veteran was appointed co-head of investment banking and capital markets for EMEA last September.

Credit Suisse declined to comment on the rumours. However, the allegedly relaxed atmosphere in the consumer and retail team might simply because there is less to do there – figures from Dealogic suggest CS has only worked on five retail deals globally this year, compared to 15 in technology and 13 in utilities and energy. Interns themselves suggest the financial insitutions group (FIG) team at the Swiss bank is also comparatively busy, with late nights/early mornings the norm.

While CS interns who want to sleep might be inclined to queue up for the consumer and retail group, there are those who would cast aspersions on this particular myth. Some at the bank say that even the consumer and retail team stay beyond midnight when deals require it. There is no escape. If you want a guaranteed seven hours’ sleep a night this summer, you should probably have chosen another division instead.

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Something’s up in Goldman Sachs’ EMEA equity derivatives business. People keep leaving.

In the past week, exits are understood to include: Alexander Jansen, the head of Nordic and Netherlands equity and structured derivatives; Gauthier Amiot, an executive director trading the exotic stocks book; and Jean Paul Gorda, an executive director in equity derivatives sales at Goldman in Paris.

The latest disappearances follow the resignations of two executive directors from Goldman’s EMEA equity derivatives team in May. The departures come as both Goldman Sachs and rival banks staff-up their equity derivatives businesses after a strong first quarter. Gorda and Amiot’s intentions are unclear, but Jansen is thought to be joining BNP Paribas in several months after a period of gardening leave.

Goldman didn’t respond to a request to comment for this article, but headhunters and insiders said the exits are driven by combined disgruntlement about politics and pay.

The former are seemingly the result of new hires. Under managing director Radovan Radman, Goldman hired seven people into its equity derivatives business last year, including – in July 2017 – Tom Groothaert from Credit Suisse. Groothaert was one of those promoted to managing director at Goldman in last year’s bumper round of promotions, a move that seemingly upset existing executive directors who felt overlooked. Other new hires such as Ivan Levchenko from BNP Paribas, Guillaume Paulhac from Roland Berger, Leaf Wade from UBS and Stanislav Mindin, also from Credit Suisse, have allegedly reinforced the notion that existing staff are being supplanted, although it could equally be argued that Goldman is simply building its team.

There are also complaints that departing staff were paid poorly after all the new hires. “There was nothing left for us, but the partners seemed to pay themselves,” said one.

Goldman Sachs is not the only bank losing and hiring equity derivatives professionals. As we reported last week, two of Deutsche Bank’s most senior equity derivatives MDs in London have quit for Morgan Stanley.

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It’s easy to get burnt out in finance. In many a banker’s career there may come a time that you come home hating your job and wondering why you are doing it.

It’s important to spend time recharging. Over 17 years, I saw some bankers do this by traveling to luxury resorts in the Bahamas or adventure holidaying in Brazil. Others prefer to spend time with their families. Different things work for different people.

However you want to recharge, however, be sure to include some of the following exercises into your downtime. They’re all cheaper than flying to the Bahamas.

Two tricks for recharging from a Wall Street career

The single biggest reason that people leave Wall Street is because they just can’t take the daily pain, the long hours, harsh clients, impossible pace. They get tired.

When you work on Wall Street, you have to keep going whether you are tired, bored, sad, angry or unhappy. You have to be able to move forward no matter how hard it is and no matter how you feel.

It’s easy to lose your way when your day consists of updating a deck for the fiftieth time or revising that model for the thirtieth.

But there is way to rise above this and not let it burn you out. There are two tricks I’ve found a lot of bankers use to recharge and re-discover their energy and purpose.

Firstly, they remind themselves how far they’ve already come. They look at what they have already achieved. They reflect on how lucky they are. They are grateful and amazed. They think about the 99% of people on this planet who have less than them, and they are thankful for the opportunities still in front of them.

Secondly, they remind themselves of their ‘Why.’ Why are they here? Why do they want to do this? Why is it important to them? As Fredrich Nietzche said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”.

You can get a huge amount of confidence and strength by reminding yourself about why you are in the game in the first place.

The why drives everything.

Answer these questions and find a mentor:

If you want to recharge, get a piece of paper, and start writing the following before September:

The things you are grateful for.
A list of people you should thank and be grateful to for their contribution in your success.
What is important to you.
What do you want to achieve and how far you have already come?
What are your goals from this moment forward?
What do you need to be better at?
How are you going to execute the plan?

The more detail the better. This will reduce your anxiety and provide you a road map for your career.

When you’ve done all that, talk through all of it with someone you trust.

If you don’t have a mentor yet, get one. Nothing will be as transformational for your career as having someone to bounce ideas off.

The trick to getting a mentor isn’t to ask someone to be one. Instead find the people pre-disposed to, maybe someone you already go for advice. Start being there for them too. Try to help them. Grow the relationship. This takes time. Ask for their views on more things. Build trust.

Before you know it, they will be your mentor. Once you have had your ideas vetted and reviewed, and you have had some time to digest them too, you are ready to begin.

Start executing and don’t stop until you get to where you want to go.

You can have whatever you want.

The author is one of a group of senior bankers who blog at the site What I Learned on Wall Street (WilowWallStreet.com).

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Current bankers have told us that interns these days make fewer mistakes than they used to and are often more prepared and serious than classes from just a few years ago. There’s enough information out there for students to walk in with fairly clear expectations. Unfortunately, the overall maturation of interns has made it even more difficult for banks to differentiate between candidates. No one is spoiling their chances by taking nude selfies in the bathroom anymore; banks need to look for subtle mistakes to help trim the herd. If anything, they’ve had to become more judgmental.

Below are a handful of common errors that can cause an intern to spoil their chances, whether they know it or not. Some are seemingly hypercritical and even arbitrary. The key, it seems, is to stand out with your work while blending in everywhere else.

Don’t botch the details

The consensus easiest reason to downgrade an intern is to find sloppy or lazy mistakes in their work or communication. Math, formatting and even grammar failings in emails rarely ever go unnoticed. “It speaks to your capabilities but also your attention to detail – one of the more underrated keys to being a reliable junior banker,” said a former Barclays associate. This can be a particular stumbling block for interns who come in with a stronger skillset than others. The work can appear more mindless and tedious than an actual learning opportunity, but you can’t treat it as such.

“Less proficient but hungrier interns can often beat out those who think they’re already capable analysts,” he said. Double-check your emails, triple-check your work.

Dress to blend in, not stand out

Bankers seem to get personally offended or at least annoyed when interns wear a suit or a pair of shoes that costs more than the internship pays. Fair or not, some make the inference that you come from money and may not be hungry enough to do the dirty work and put in the hours. Others may just view it as poor judgment. Be well-tailored, but don’t stick out with gaudy luxury names, a hedge fund exec told us. “Leave your Louboutins at home.”

“And don’t wear flip flops to work in the morning, even if it’s from the elevator to your desk,” she said. “My feet hurt too. Suck it up.”

Work before you network

If you’ve ever listened to interviews with bulge-bracket CEOs, they’ll preach to interns about the importance of networking, grabbing coffee with different members of the bank and meeting as many people as possible. “That’s bull****,” said one current VP. “If you’re off shaking hands and kissing babies while others are doing actual work, good luck.” The best way to meet other bankers outside of your group is to offer to pitch in on other projects after you’ve finished your work and your boss has gone home. Which leads to…

Don’t leave early. Don’t have plans

Being the first intern out the door at night can be a death sentence, even if you personally don’t have any work left. Find something to do, or at least pretend to. But don’t leave before your superiors unless you’re thrown out the door as a group, which does happen. “And don’t make plans that you can’t break. It’s only 10 weeks,” said the VP. “You’ll need the practice for the next two years anyway.”

Ask questions, but not the same ones

Don’t sit at your desk spinning your wheels if you don’t know what you’re doing, said a former Deutsche Bank VP. “Everyone assumes you are dumb and don’t know anything about this job. They won’t think less of you if you ask a question,” she said. But asking the same questions repeatedly – especially to the same person – will absolutely hurt your chances, added a headhunter who spent two decades as a banker.

Don’t be the party guy/girl

This is one issue bankers say they are seeing less and less. But don’t come in hungover, don’t talk about your epic evening and be careful not to overindulge at work functions, even if others do, said the banker-turned-recruiter.

It’s also always good practice to steer clear of these conversations outside the walls of the bank, never knowing who’s listening. We were told the story of an analyst who once bragged to a friend about a drug-fueled evening during his morning commute to New York City, not knowing an MD from a different group within his firm was sitting in the same train car. That was his last day with the bank.

And perhaps my favorite piece of advice

“Walk fast everywhere – people will think you are busy.”

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The Singapore head of a major private bank has criticised the growing number of relationship managers who frequently change jobs in order to pocket the bumper pay rises on offer in Asian wealth management.

As we noted last year, this job-hopping trend is being fuelled partly by boutique private banks (such as LGT, VP Bank, EFG, and Safra Sarasin) offering 30% to 50% salary increases to attract new RMs to their small platforms and to compensate RMs for loss of clients.

Moving banks too often may come at a price, however. Not only are some RMs struggling to meet onerous revenue targets at boutiques a year after joining, they may well also face opposition if they try to rejoin larger firms in the future.

“I’m now screening out bankers who are constantly job hopping,” says the Singapore-based boss of a European private bank. “If you’re not in your current role for at least four or five years, I’m not bothered with you. I want to know if you’re going to be with us over the long run. If you’ve jumped around recently, it’s very likely to be an ongoing pattern,” adds the banker, who asked not to be named.

Southeast Asia’s millionaires and billionaires are getting tired of following their bankers from one firm to another as account onboarding procedures have become more onerous, says the private banking chief. “Clients are increasingly telling me that they’re sick of bankers moving three or four times within a short period, no matter what the reason. Clients want more stability,” he adds.

The senior banker says he’s now focused on hiring RMs who have a track record of long-term relationships rather than a CV full of job moves and promotions. “I’m also interested in stability. For example, can you show me that you’ve kept your clients happy through downturns?” he adds. “You have to have a pretty good reason to join us and be committed to us long term. We’re doing our best to filter out fly-by-night private bankers.”

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: smortlock@efinancialcareers.com

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Taking enforced gardening leave doesn’t always come naturally to workaholic investment bankers. Do you sit on a beach in Thailand, or study up before your new job?

Vincent Wong faced no such dilemmas when he left his role as head of Greater China debt capital markets at ANZ late last year. Before joining Mizuho’s DCM team as a Hong Kong-based managing director, Wong gave himself three months to…start up a coffee and juice bar.

His two decades working in investment banking provided the inspiration for Athletic Juice & Espresso Bar, which opened in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district in January. “As a banker, I work long hours and travel to China a lot. A few years ago, I realised that my lifestyle was taking a toll on my health, so I started eating a plant-based diet and exercising more,” says the DCM veteran. “From there, it was a natural progression to open a business focused on healthy juices and smoothies.”

High-end coffee is also on the menu. “I even trained as a barista to really get to know the industry before I started out,” he says. “I also spoke to other cafe owners in Hong Kong, and was amazed at how open they were about their businesses. That’s a big contrast with banking, where people don’t like sharing trade secrets.”

Wong got involved in every aspect of his new business – from interior design to smoothie recipes – to make sure it got up and running within his gardening-leave period. “I’m used to working fast and smart. Banking is essentially about being able to project manage a deal so every aspect of it comes together within a tight time frame. I used the same skills getting the cafe off the ground,” adds Wong.

He also put his financial modelling expertise – Wong started his career in corporate finance – to good use. “I did a comprehensive financial review of my competition before I set the prices for my drinks,” he says.

Wong, who previously worked for Deutsche Bank and RBS and has also been based in Singapore and New York, is still drawing on his experiences in banking to help run his cafe. “Banking has made me very adaptable, because I’ve worked across countries, interacted with colleagues and clients at different banks, and transitioned from corporate finance to DCM,” he says. “I’ve also had to adapt to plenty of new situations with my cafe – such as dealing with suppliers and hiring staff – but as a banker I’m used to facing constant challenges.”

Still, most bankers who launch businesses end up quitting their day jobs. “I’m not interested in leaving the sector, I’m not one of those burned-out bankers,” says Wong. “My banking job will always be my priority, and I just work on cafe business at night and during weekends if I need to. I’m fortunate to have a great bunch of employees. They run the cafe so well that it no longer takes up much of my time.”

Wong’s baristas and juice makers are now serving up drinks to the neighbourhood’s banking professionals. Societe Generale, BNY Mellon and ING are all around the corner. “We get a good mix of people here,” says Wong. “It’s part residential so we have locals popping in, and during the week we get our fair share of bankers.”

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: smortlock@efinancialcareers.com

Follow @simonmortlock

Morning Coffee: Bank CEO’s warning to bankers under 30. Bill Gross and the fart spray

Meanwhile:

The summer interns are here: “I expect to work from 9am to 2am”

Why an MBA still trumps a master’s in finance in banking

This is what Jefferies’ Q2 results are saying about your banking job

1. Good times for fixed income traders did not last

2. Given half an excuse, banks will cut pay

3. Equities trading revenues are weirdly steady

4. Bankers are resurgent and hiring senior investment bankers makes good sense

5. Traders are finding it harder to turn a profit

“It’s about engaging at all levels, not just the top.” How Morgan Stanley’s commitment to diversity is empowering women.

The quant hedge fund that spun off from Credit Suisse is doing some big hiring

Morning Coffee: Bank of America and Credit Suisse want old-school traders – here’s why. Toothless stress tests coming

Meanwhile:

Some advice for the mistaken young people I interview for hedge fund jobs

It’s not the size of the portfolio that matters

Diversification is Important

What’s your thesis?

What did you get wrong?

Demonstrate passion

How to get a job at Jacob Rees-Mogg’s curiously egalitarian fund management company

Where European banks are hiring and firing on Wall Street now

Do you still need the CFA to work on Wall Street? Or is it all about Asia now?

OCBC hires ex-police inspector with “perfect CV” to lead expanding team in Singapore

The people Goldman, JPM and others just can’t wait to hire in Hong Kong

Morning Coffee: The tragedy of the ex-UBS trader now running a burger restaurant. Gary Cohn’s new way to make $250k

Meanwhile:

London interns trade stories of a special IBD boss at Credit Suisse

Resignations at Goldman Sachs amidst complaints about politics and pay

The art of summer when you work in investment banking

Two tricks for recharging from a Wall Street career

Answer these questions and find a mentor:

How to fail as a banking intern

Singapore banking boss slams money-hungry “job hoppers”

I was a DCM head in Hong Kong…then I trained as a barista

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1. Good times for fixed income traders did not last

2. Given half an excuse, banks will cut pay

3. Equities trading revenues are weirdly steady

4. Bankers are resurgent and hiring senior investment bankers makes good sense

5. Traders are finding it harder to turn a profit

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It’s not the size of the portfolio that matters

Diversification is Important

What’s your thesis?

What did you get wrong?

Demonstrate passion

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Meanwhile:

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Two tricks for recharging from a Wall Street career

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