| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
So you can imagine my surprise when I heard the other day that a trader had been offered several million dollars to jump to another bank, guaranteed for a couple of years. That's right: several million dollars. At first I thought I'd heard wrong. It's 2009, not 2006. When the story was confirmed, I was straight-up pissed off. I worked with this trader. I have been a client as well, and I have lots of respect. But how is it possible in this environment to be guaranteed millions before even producing a penny for the firm? You'd think that after the AIG scandal, the Merrill Lynch plundering, the public outcries, the grillings on Capital Hill, the Wall Street tools would have realized that the gilded days are over. No more eight-figure pay packages, no more million-dollar office renovations, no insanely priced commodes. Think again. This trader left a bulge bracket bank for a smaller foreign firm, one free from U.S. regulations. This bank can pay its employees whatever it wants--and it's the shareholders' money, not the taxpayers... We have all heard bank C.E.O.s cry that curbing executive pay will lead to a brain drain and that they need to retain talent. My feelings on the "best and brightest" have been pretty clear--a lot of them got us into this mess, not to mention into other quagmires, and there are plenty of bright people on the sidelines who want to get back into the game. People much like...me. So here is a healthy bank scooping up talent from a weaker one,
just as the C.E.O.'s have warned. And it's not an isolated
example--there has been a flood of people from troubled investment banks
to smaller boutiques. This past week even the beleaguered Swiss bank
UBS announced 50% salary increases for all employees to stop the tide
of departures. It's clear why any bank would want to keep good
employees from leaving, but is talent migration really a broader policy
issue? Should the government care if the "best" people leave Citi or
Bank of America to go work at Small Bank X? For the rest of the post, check out Recessionwire. You can also check out The Deal's Movers & shakers column to find out which banks traders and bankers are headed to. - Maria Woehr Also see: Paulson to banks: Take TARP or else State Street drives to escape TARP Recessionwire: Good and Evil on Wall Street Recessionwire: When Plan B Becomes Plan A Recessionwire: Pride Goeth After the Fall Recessionwire: Hope Springs Eternal
 Deal Video
    Community
 Elsewhere on The Deal.comDealwatch
The Deal MagazineCorporate Dealmaker
The Deal VideoCategories
Blog roll
Archives
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Maybe those bank CEOs were onto something when they said that bankers would leave U.S. firms for foreign firms due to compensation caps. This week Joe the Trader of 
|
|
|
|
|
