While most of the big business news organizations have relentlessly focussed on the pay and pain at the top of Wall Street firms, at DealBreaker we’re intensely working to bring you the latest news throughout the ranks. From senior managing directors to analysts, we’re constantly reporting tips about bonuses, layoffs and where the jobs are. (Send whatever you are hearing to tips@dealbreaker.com. Thanks!)
This morning the New York Sun has a report on what has now become the bonus waiting game. At this stage, almost anyone who hasn’t been laid off is attempting to hold out for the year-end bonus before they hit the job-seeking trail. Layoffs are expected the continue in the first quarter of next year, however, so that might be a tough time to land a plumb spot. To make matters worse, you’ll also be competing with everyone else who also played the take-the-bonus-and-run strategy.
That’s the news that bruises. Now here’s the news you can use. According to the New York Sun, it’s not bad all around. Private equity firms still have lots of money sitting around waiting to put into action, and three areas look hot: special situations (that’s purchasing non-public assets like Japanese golf clubs, Texas steel mils, and other unusual investment opportunities), distressed debt and turnarounds.
The Sun reports:

“When new management comes in, the CEO takes a fresh look, new alliances are formed, and the people who are the closest advisers and allies of the former executive no longer hold that position. As the favored status changes, it ripples down through the organization,” the chief executive at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, John Challenger, said. Right now, “there is a lot of resume paper on the street — people have happy feet,” he said, adding that he is seeing triple the number of resumes on his desk than at this time last year.
But as nerves shake among employees at the city’s big banks, there may be a silver lining. Some areas, particularly distressed debt, turnarounds, and special situations, are actually hiring.
“There is so much money sloshing around in private equity, that the money has to flow somewhere, and it is most likely flowing into distressed debt and special situations,” Mr. Goldstein said. “We have received calls from some banks looking to selectively hire in areas where they are not currently strong but think there are opportunities.”

Scramble Hits Wall Street [New York Sun]

We write quite a bit around here about job cuts—mostly real although sometimes simply rumored or feared—on Wall Street. But one thing that can get lost in the news about the little cuts—a fixed income trading desk here, a mortgage unit there—is the total amount of blood-letting. How many jobs have New York based financial firms cut this year, anyway?
We got our answer this morning from a real estate news story buried deep inside the New York Times this morning. Well, maybe it wasn’t buried that deep. It was on the front page of the Metro Section but, to be frank, we don’t really read the Metro section very often.
We found ourselves dirtying our fingers this morning with Metro because we were wondering whether this talk of a cab strike would interfere with our plans to attend a party thrown by our friends in the sports ticket futures business. But what got our attention was a long story on how the slow down on Wall Street might impact New York’s economy. And there it was in black and white and smudgy grey.
“All told, financial services firms based in New York have announced job cuts of 42,404 this year,” Times reporter Patrick McGeehan writes, citing the job-placement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “More than half came in one reorganization at Citigroup, whose employees are scattered around the world, but most of the others have been in and around New York.”
We did some math in the margins of our copy of the paper on the ride into the DealBreaker bunker. Let’s say there are around 190,000 employed by Wall Street firms. (That’s a rough estimate, to be sure. Broader measures of “financial firms” counts as many as three times that number.) Eliminate about 21,000 cuts for Citigroup and we’re left with 21,000 more. Half of those is 10,500. Add back another 5,000 cuts for Citigroup in New York, and we’re up to 15,500. That leaves us with about 8% of Wall Street’s workforce having been cut. Okay, we realize that we’re kind of doing SIV-style math here–guessing about guesses, and then putting a firm number on it–but this should give you some idea of how deep the cuts have gone somewhere.
Not to be too negative—although we’re wearing a black shirt and taking our coffee black on this Monday morning—but this is just the beginning.
With Wall Street Slowing, Uncertainty Descends [New York Times]