Morning Coffee: JPMorgan’s quiet layoffs. Goldman Sachs’ Q3 results will look better than they are
JPMorgan is laying London people off. Who knew? We didn’t, although maybe we should have given that the US bank declared its intention to make investment banking cost savings back in July.
Three months ago, the talk at JPM was all of cutting technology and support staff. Lately, it seems that JPMorgan has been taking its axe to the front office too. Reuters reports that several members of the bank’s financial institutions group (FIG) debt capital markets (DCM) team have been put at risk pending their removal. Jason Mann, a FIG syndicate ‘official’ is the most recent victim. In July, three other FIG DCM bankers (Veenay Chheda, an executive director in the hybrid structuring team, Ian Haywood, a UK and Ireland FIG DCM coverage banker, and Lily Brown, a French FIG DCM banker) were all put at risk too. Layoffs are clearly afoot ahead of bonus time. JPMorgan’s European FIG DCM cull looks curious though – FIG deals in Europe are up 53% year-on-year according to Dealogic, making it one of the more active sectors in the debt markets.
Separately, banks’ third quarter results are approaching. JPMorgan’s results are due on October 14th, followed by Goldman Sachs’s and Morgan Stanley’s (probably) on October 16th. All eyes will be on banks’ fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) businesses, which haven’t been having a good year. Steve Chubak, a banking analyst at Nomura, thinks banks’ FICC results could be deceiving. Compared to the third quarter of 2013, Chubak says Goldman Sachs’ FICC business could report a 40% rise in revenues – but this is only because last year it performed so dismally. Conversely, Morgan Stanley had a good Q3 2013, which it will struggle to match. As a result, Chubak thinks Morgan Stanley’s FICC revenues could decline by 6%. Morgan Stanley already pays its London-staff half the amount that Goldman Sachs does. Will James Gorman use a poor third quarter to cut comparative pay at Morgan Stanley even more?
Meanwhile:
Lloyds Bank has dismissed eight traders and reclaimed £3m in unvested bonuses after it was fined £226m for rigging LIBOR . The FCA said that 16 people were involved in the scandal altogether. (Bloomberg)
Citigroup says the finance industry could have to spend $10bn a year to combat money laundering. Citi alone employs 30,000 control staff already. (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs’s Libya whistleblower was so fearful he’d lose his job at the bank that he got his visa changed. (Twitter)
Google has commissioned some research on how it might enter the fund management sector. (Financial Times)
Janus’s market cap is on a par with Bill Gross’s personal fortune. (Economist)
When is insider trading not insider trading? An influential research analyst tipped his trader friend off about the content of his coming reports. He lost his job. (Bloomberg)
Want to work for the largest hedge funds in the world? Try these. (CNBC)
65% of this year’s Wall Street investment banking analyst class comes from just 30 schools. (QZ)
53% of people in the financial services industry work less than 50 hours a week. (Financial News)
How to choose what to do with your life in one simple chart. (Twitter)
