If you get an analyst job at Goldman Sachs you’ll be able to save a lot of money, maybe pay down the debts generated by your education, save for a deposit for a house. Right? Err, not necessarily.
When Goldman Sachs surveyed its interns last summer it found their number one aspiration was saving money. People who want to work for Goldman Sachs are thrifty types who want nothing more than to own their places. However, the experience of one former Goldman analysts suggests the savings rate among young people at the firm may not be all that.
Scott Belsky spent four years working at Goldman Sachs. During that time, he saved…$18k. What went wrong?
Firstly, timing. Belsky started at Goldman in 2002, after the tech boom turned to bust and September 11th happened. Banks still paid good money in 2002, but far less than in previous years. Even allowing for inflation, Belsky didn’t save much: in current prices that $4.5k of annual savings would be equivalent to around $5.5k.
Secondly: positioning. Belsky lived in New York City, which is expensive, and he didn’t go for wage maximization in the front office. He stuck to what he describes as, “a very mundane job on the trading floor,” followed by two years working at Pine Street – Goldman’s training facility.
Thirdly: enthusiasm. Belsky wasn’t especially enamored of his job. “A year and a half in, I realized this was not where I was going to spend my career,” he told Business Insider. Even so, leaving was hard. Goldman Sachs was like a, “comfortable womb,” Belsky recalls.
Even so, leave he did and after taking an MBA at Harvard Business School, Belsky invested his $18k in a company which he subsequently sold to Adobe for $150m. Saving half your compensation at Goldman Sachs is so overrated.
Separately, Chris Rokos is hiring. The ex-Brevan Howard, ex-Goldman Sachs star trader who started a fund in London two years ago, wants some new macro fund managers following a reported $2bn increase in assets under management. Rokos Capital Management currently employs 22 people according to the FCA Register. Only five of these are portfolio managers. Rokos reportedly wants to hire five more in a “gradual expansion.”
Meanwhile:
Living the dream: computer science graduates live 40 to a house in San Francisco as they look for jobs in Silicon Valley. (Venturebeat)
Deutsche says equities sales and trading revenues are up, as are fixed income sales and trading revenues. – But at a diminishing rate. (Bloomberg)
Bank mergers are back on the table. Bank of America just poached Eric Bischof, Morgan Stanley’s veteran FIG dealmaker. (Financial Times)
Mysterious exits from Credit Suisses’s struggling Asian business. (Bloomberg)
Why banks can’t compete with Google’s Deep Mind for staff attraction: “At Princeton, I was with people I considered brilliant. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to come here.” (Financial Times)
Just because you’ve lived in the UK since 1999 and have a British wife, don’t assume you’ll automatically be able to stay after Brexit. (BigStory)
Citigroup’s got an on-call ethicist which it consults on weighty questions of right and wrong, supplementing its armies of lawyers and compliance officers. (The Hive)
Reclusive conspiracy-theorist hedge fund billionaire who likes his shampoo bottles full has been funding Trump. (New Yorker)
A parachute battalion will be training at Barclays in Canary Wharf. (Daily Mail)
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Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com
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