Several weeks back, Barclays CEO Bob Diamond said in an interview that his firm received “applications from 107,000 kids at university, of which we had positions for 1,500.” Diamond threw out the numbers to show that, despite profits not being what they used to, people still want to work on Wall Street. And, more to the point, that those currently employed in the financial services industry who’ve threatened to quit in the last month over bonuses that did not meet their expectations can and will be easily replaced. But perhaps the line didn’t work on you? Perhaps you shrugged off the “threat” of a bunch of faceless 21 year-olds with zero skills taking your job? While you may have been right to not quake in your boots over the vast majority of Diamond’s li’l worker bees, you might want to worry a little bit about one aspiring young junior mistmaker in particular. Continue reading »
threats
High-Level Jefferies Employees Were Ready To Pack It Up And Leave Until They Realized It’s Not 2007
By Bess Levin
Several executives and other employees in Jefferies Group Inc.’s prime-brokerage unit threatened to leave the firm in a dispute over issues including a recent restructuring and year-end compensation, people familiar with the matter said. The dispute led to a series of meetings Tuesday involving Jefferies executives and its global head of prime brokerage, Glen Dailey, the people said. Mr. Dailey, in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal, acknowledged the discussions but said no one was leaving, adding, “family affairs are now in order.” [WSJ, earlier, earlier]
Since When Is Saying “If You Don’t Like The Euro Trade You Repo This [Grabs Crotch] To Maturity” Considered A Threat?
By Bess LevinAsked if he’d threatened to leave MF Global if the board did not trust his judgment on the European trade, Mr. Corzine said no. But he conceded he had “one specific conversation with a lead director which could have been interpreted that way.” [WSJ]
In a recent interview with New York, Lloyd Blankfein said “I’m tired of [Charlie] Gasparino. I wish he would quit.” Chaz apparently caught wind of Blankfein’s wish, and earlier this afternoon, took to Twitter to respond. Continue reading »
Standard & Poor’s Friday put a broad range of financial firms on negative credit watch, warning they could all be downgraded if the United States has its credit rating cut. The S&P action takes in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, all “AAA”-rated insurers, clearinghouses, fixed-income and exchange-traded funds and hedge funds, some Federal Home Loan Banks and Farm Credit System Banks, among others. S&P characterized its targets as “entities with direct links to, or reliance on, the federal government.” [Reuters]
*Not actually necessary. Corpses are also on notice.
It could also be interpreted as the greatest veiled threat since Angelo Mozilo said Bank of America “will reap the benefits of what [Countrywide] has sowed.” Continue reading »
Time was, when bonus season rolled around, you could count on the discontent, the grumbling, the “this isn’t fair,” the “fuck you, you overpaid jerks,” and the “I’m going to do something crazy in defiance” coming from places far, far away from Wall Street. Sure, some people might have been upset about their particular numbers but on the whole, there wasn’t a lot of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ going on on the inside. This year, as we’ve discussed at length, bonuses at banks (hedge funds and private equity are doing just fine) will for the most part be fairly crummy (those getting flat numbers year-on-year are among the lucky). Of course, some people will be on the receiving end of enough zeros to make them smile– such as the top earners, who made the firm money– and this time around it’s their colleagues telling them to go to hell.
Annual bonuses at top global banks are causing ructions that could drive a outsized round of defections as weaker profits and tougher rules widen the pay discrepancy between star performers and everybody else. “The differentiation this year between a small number of top-fee earning investment bankers and the bulk of their colleagues will be unlike ever before,” said a top Asia executive at a large investment bank. “The tail end will be significantly hurt.”
What’s the tail end going to do about it? Continue reading »
If so, someone didn’t tell money manager Vincent McCrudden, who, according to CNBC, was arrested today by the FBI for things of that nature (he allegedly made told a total of 47 “US financial regulatory officials” that he might kill them). Continue reading »
Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman Threatens To Personally Fire Anyone Caught Leaking Bonus Information
By Bess Levin
By its own estimation, Morgan Stanley’s bonuses are set to suck this year. The best employees have been told to hope for is a year on year decrease of 10 to 30 percent. And for his own part, chief exec James Gorman has been fairly vocal about the need for Wall Street to get to a place where failure isn’t rewarded isn’t rewarded as richly as success. Since some of Morgan Stanley’s business have not exactly succeeded with flying colors this year, it should follow that their staff will be compensated accordingly. Perhaps anticipating that there will be some unhappy campers, Jim has suddenly decided that while it’s no secret most people’s pay will be in the toilet, which he supports, Morgan Stanley must suppress this information from the outside world. How is Gorman planning on going about enforcing the new rule? Brute fucking force. Continue reading »
On Monday night, Stephen Colbert announced that after one of his writer’s had found a lost credit card belonging to Goldman Sachs partner Buckley T. Ratchford, he would be giving out one number per show each day that BTR failed to appear on the Colbert Report to talk Wall Street bonuses. Though Buck presumably had the mental faculties to cancel the card upon losing it, we wagered that he would prefer the information not to be distributed. And, also, that Goldman would not be offering up a body and if need be, Blankfein would head over to the studio to bust some skulls. Luckily for Steph-o, it didn’t come to that. Continue reading »
Stephen Colbert Threatens To Give Out Goldman Sachs Partner’s Credit Card Number Unless He Comes On Show
By Bess LevinWhile Stephen Colbert is all good with Wall Street bonuses, he is aware that 70% of American playa-hatas are not. He’d like someone making it rain this year to come on his show and make people understand why they money is deserved but so far no one has accepted his offer. Luckily, one of his writers found a lost credit card belonging to a Goldman Sachs partner last week. Specifically, the MasterCard of Buckley T. Ratchford, who was inducted into the Brotherhood of the Sach in 2006. Continue reading »
