Morning Coffee: Nomura’s bankers suffer new humiliation. When you join Goldman Sachs at 21 and everything goes right
The pain has been protracted at Nomura. First the Japanese bank let go of fixed income professionals last summer, allegedly while some of them were on holiday. Then it unexpectedly closed its cash equities business, along with ECM. Then it cut swathes of juniors from its London IBD team. And now? - Now it seems that Nomura's investment bankers, in the U.S. at least, have been seriously disappointed at bonus time.
Such is their disappointment, that they've gone to the New York Post with their gripes. The Post reports that the bonus pool at Nomura's American investment banking business has been cut by 60%. Managers of the business reportedly asked for a pool of $50m pool to disburse among the 39 remaining members of the team ($1.7m each). Instead, they've been allocated a mere $20m ($500k each). This is after Nomura cut around 50 managing directors in its US investment banking business earlier this month - a move that might've boded well for the bonuses of anyone left behind. .
Nomura bankers in London now have reason to doubt their bonus expectations too. The Japanese bank typically announces its London bonuses in late May, with payment early June. Suddenly there's not much to look forward to. This year's Nomura bonus may well be the old cliché of keeping your job.
Separately, Charles Dunlap at Cerberus Capital Management is some sort of poster boy for gilded youths who join Goldman and do everything right. Dunlap, an American, moved to London in 2006 aged 21, to join Goldman's analyst programme. From Goldman, he moved to distressed debt fund, Cerberus. There. aged just 31, Financial News says Dunlap recently led Cerberus’s acquisition of £13bn of mortgages formerly owned by Northern Rock from the UK government. Dunlap's already been on Financial News's list of top private equity professionals under 40 twice. Given his precocity, he could achieve another nine appearances yet.
Meanwhile:
Bank of America now has three global co-heads of M&A. Patrick Ramsey and Jack MacDonald cover the Americas. Adrian Mee cover the entire rest of the world. (Financial News).
David Escoffier, the man who built SocGen's equity derivatives business and former head of its global markets business, is leaving after 17 years. (Financial News)
Banks aren't hiring in London because of fears over Brexit. (Financial Times)
HSBC trader refused to move from Paris to London, said he was harassed. (Bloomberg)
Senior executive in Deutsche's equities business resigns for no apparent reason. (Bloomberg)
Evercore just hired a veteran energy banker from Deutsche. (Reuters)
Can you believe UBS's 25.9% return on equity in its investment bank? (Gadfly)
Veteran analyst says Goldman Sachs made a massive mistake not changing its business model. (CNBC)
The Bank of England contemplates what mindfulness means for economics. (Bank Underground)
China’s biggest brokerage houses are using online videos and live streams of attractive, female analysts to tout stocks. (Quartz)
How people with facial acne scars are perceived in society. (Springer)
Photo credit: Nomura building by aglet is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
