Investment Banking Associate Leaving Deutsche Bank Writes Master Class Email On How To Leave Deutsche Bank
Sometimes in life you have to just sit back and appreciate true greatness when it presents itself.
Such is the case with Bill Keenan, a now-former investment banking associate at Deutsche Bank who just authored perhaps the most bracingly honest and no-fucks-given farewell email in the history of the form. Given the facts that Keenan appears to have a background as a professional writer and has been working at Deutsche for almost two years, his email appears to the serendipitous result of a torturous reality being inflicted on a man capable of conveying the true ennui and lazy malice of that experience.
What makes the email truly great is Keenan's simultaneous awareness that neither he nor Deutsche Bank are worthy of anything but scorn, and that he apparently sucked at a job that obviously sucked. He even starts off with what appears to be a joke at the expense of private equity and cryptocurrencies.
And something has struck a chord in Keenan's fellow travelers on the road of junior banking pain. His email has been "leaked" to us by 10 separate sources in the last 24 hours, a sign of both its viral popularity and its worthiness of a spot in the pantheon of "Wall Street's Greatest Fuck Y'all Emails of All-Time."
And without further ado, we present Bill Keenan's masterwork: "bye bye_vF":
Classification: Public
Team,
My time has come. I’ve taken a position at the global private equity shop KKR (Kohlberg Keenan & Ravis) where I’ve been tasked with building out their cryptocurrency franchise.
Things I’ll miss: getting 7 calls from BIS minutes after sending over a request and explaining 7 times what I wrote clearly in the original email; padding my 110-hour staffing log with rogue assignments(a); having Dat swing by my desk and pester me (no, it’s not “live,” never is) even after I put in my headphones while he’s talking; non-speaking roles during credit calls; seeing Emily from time to time; pretending to know what specialty silicas are; watching full seasons of TV shows on Monday afternoons; MD’s assumption that the “F9” key magically re-does the model; Dammy’s ability to laugh through the depths of an all-nighter; forecasting interest expense as a percentage of sales in credit models; Burke standing 2 inches from me when he talks; the clarity and precision of Welsford mark-ups on the early turns; shootin’ the breeze with the 7’s; Prez over-promising and under-delivering; having the FactSet girl make price charts for me, then calling her back cause she sounds hot; having nary a clue if the seamless guy is on pine or wall street cause his flip phone has no volume control; hearing analysts say “will do” and “thanks” after getting shafted; V’ing up.
To my fellow junior bankers – I’m in awe of what you can do(b). I hope you each find what you’re looking for either here or elsewhere. And for those of you who’ve ever been staffed with me: sorry, but believe me when I say I was actually trying.
To Parin, Ashu, and the entire MAKS gang – I’m certain you’re breathing a collective sigh of relief. I’ve exhausted your capacity and blown up your Diwali weekends more times than you’d care to remember and for that, I hereby bequeath all my deal toys to you. Without you, I wouldn’t have gotten a job at DB. Seriously, you guys did the assignment that got me the offer during my internship though it took considerable work on my end to change notes in excel from “MA Knowledge Services” to “BKeenan.” Should you find yourselves stateside, beers are on me. I hope this is fine.
Lastly, a word of caution: to those of you who may find yourselves working in one of my old back-ups, tread carefully. This goes double if you’re staffed on Motiva where I hardcoded the entire football field in last summer’s deck.
Stay in touch.
Bill
Email: [REDACTED]
DM: [REDACTED]
(a) Dow/DuPont CRM is the plug
(b) Peer set excludes Cherkin
Source: my head
