Once upon a time, Deutsche Bank was seen as a special place to work in New York City. Writing on this site a few years ago, one former DB banker in America reminisced about how great the people were there. Because Deutsche was a less-established bank in the Americas, he said there was a real culture of camaraderie: "The harder things got, the more we felt compelled to stay. We didn’t want to let our friends down; we wanted to fight together."

Then Deutsche Bank restructured. Jobs were cut and the equities sales and trading unit was ditched. 30% of jobs and costs were ditched in America between 2007 and 2020, and the comrades went separate ways.

If you work for Goldman Sachs, and you're 'vaccine hesitant,' the firm would like to know.

Goldman sent a memo to its U.S. employees on April 22 asking them to download a vaccine tracker within its "Canopy app." The memo, seen by eFinancialCareers, asked Goldman people to, "register their vaccine status including the vaccine manufacturer and the date(s) you received your dose(s)."

JPMorgan has promoted some new managing directors. Last year, promotions were delayed and happened in July due to COVID. This year, they're back on schedule, and are up - 116 people made MD at JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank (CIB) last year; this year it's up to 134 people.

The full list is below. Financial News says 52 people have been promoted in EMEA. They include Mark Handley, the co-head of CEEMEA credit trading, Dimitri Hippocrate, the head of flow credit for France and Benelux and Filippo Finelli, the global head of commodities automated trading strategies. In the U.S., this year's promotions include Saad Chamich, the head of U.S. index forward trading. 

JPMorgan has promoted some new managing directors. Last year, promotions were delayed and happened in July due to COVID. This year, they're back on schedule, and are up - 116 people made MD at JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank (CIB) last year; this year it's up to 134 people.

The full list is below. Financial News says 52 people have been promoted in EMEA. They include Mark Handley, the co-head of CEEMEA credit trading, Dimitri Hippocrate, the head of flow credit for France and Benelux and Filippo Finelli, the global head of commodities automated trading strategies. In the U.S., this year's promotions include Saad Chamich, the head of U.S. index forward trading. 

Last week was the worst week according to a senior technologist working on a major bank's risk and pricing systems in London. "We had a bunch of our Indian people out," he says. "They're ok now - a lot of them are young, but we have a fair number of middle aged folks too. It could have been problematic if the situation had been more serious - we have knowledge in that team that's not available in other regions."

As COVID-19 ravages India, most banks have staff working from home. Goldman Sachs - which employs 6,000 people in Bengalaru alone, at one of its largest offices in the world, told all but its critical staff in India to revert to working from home in late March. Sources say this has helped: "Without people in the office, it's unlikely the entire team would be taken out by COVID at once," says the senior technologist in London, of his Indian colleagues.

As dealmaking goes through the roof, it might be expected that banks would be queuing up to add senior talent. However, Ken Moelis, CEO of boutique firm Moelis & Co., explained yesterday why this isn't necessarily the case. 

As banks' stock prices have risen, the cost of buying out deferred bonuses when new hires are made, has increased proportionately. Hiring senior bankers, "may get more expensive because you've had financial stocks run up in the last year," said Moelis, speaking on yesterday's investor call. "And remember, we have to pick up a lot of deferred," he added, noting that combined with higher pay following last year, this means that the cost of new hires has risen.

If you work for Goldman Sachs, and you're 'vaccine hesitant,' the firm would like to know.

Goldman sent a memo to its U.S. employees on April 22 asking them to download a vaccine tracker within its "Canopy app." The memo, seen by eFinancialCareers, asked Goldman people to, "register their vaccine status including the vaccine manufacturer and the date(s) you received your dose(s)."

Hedge fund Point72 is hiring technologists, but if you were hoping for a development job at the fund that was previously Steve Cohen's family office in Stamford Connecticut, you might be out of look. Most of Point72's current technology recruitment is for its new office in Warsaw, Poland.

Point72 said last year that it was opening a new tech hub in Warsaw, and that it planned to recruit 150 people working across finance, technology and operations by the end of 2021. Some of those hires have already been made. Others are in process: of 42 global technology jobs advertised by Point72 currently, 30 are in Warsaw; 11 are in New York or Stamford; one is in Hong Kong or Singapore. 

The chart shows how Deutsche Bank plans to grow and stabilize its fixed income trading business between 2020 and 2022. Last year, fixed income trading revenues at DB were €7.1bn ($8.6bn). By 2022, Deutsche is expecting them to be smaller - at €6.7bn.

There will be a "certain normalization" of revenues in Deutsche Bank's fixed income business in future, said CEO Christian Sewing today. However, he noted that the first quarter of 2021 saw a "very strong recovery in credit - even stronger than anticipated," suggesting that the credit section of the chart below may need to be updated. 

In a separate post on LinkedIn, James Davies - Deutsche Bank's head of the investment bank for the Americas, said "strategic hires" made in fixed income trading in the U.S. are starting to make a real difference. Last year Deutsche hired people like Mark DeSplinter from Citi as head of US index and single-name credit default swap (CDS) trading, and Chris...

Earlier in the year, it sounded like Deutsche Bank were going to be among the leaders in terms of changing their working models after the pandemic.  Since the move to working from home coincided with some of the best quarters in recent memory, Christian Sewing seemed to treat it like a pair of lucky socks that he was reluctant to change in case the winning streak ended.

As interns loom, however, Sewing seems to have rethought his footwear and there are a few caveats being made. Deutsche Bank people will soon be expected back in the office, just not all the time. According to CFO James van Moltke, the target range for home working time is closer to a generous three days a week at home a week than two – “It’s a range of 40 to 60 percent, we think, of flexibility”.  And yet, “it will really be up to the employee, but in a structured way with the manager so we know when people are expected to come to the...

The chart shows how Deutsche Bank plans to grow and stabilize its fixed income trading business between 2020 and 2022. Last year, fixed income trading revenues at DB were €7.1bn ($8.6bn). By 2022, Deutsche is expecting them to be smaller - at €6.7bn.

There will be a "certain normalization" of revenues in Deutsche Bank's fixed income business in future, said CEO Christian Sewing today. However, he noted that the first quarter of 2021 saw a "very strong recovery in credit - even stronger than anticipated," suggesting that the credit section of the chart below may need to be updated. 

In a separate post on LinkedIn, James Davies - Deutsche Bank's head of the investment bank for the Americas, said "strategic hires" made in fixed income trading in the U.S. are starting to make a real difference. Last year Deutsche hired people like Mark DeSplinter from Citi as head of US index and single-name credit default swap (CDS) trading.

Hedge fund Point72 is hiring technologists, but if you were hoping for a development job at the fund that was previously Steve Cohen's family office in Stamford Connecticut, you might be out of look. Most of Point72's current technology recruitment is for its new office in Warsaw, Poland.

Point72 said last year that it was opening a new tech hub in Warsaw, and that it planned to recruit 150 people working across finance, technology and operations by the end of 2021. Some of those hires have already been made. Others are in process: of 42 global technology jobs advertised by Point72 currently, 30 are in Warsaw; 11 are in New York or Stamford; one is in Hong Kong or Singapore. 

Hedge fund Point72 is hiring technologists, but if you were hoping for a development job at the fund that was previously Steve Cohen's family office in Stamford Connecticut, you might be out of look. Most of Point72's current technology recruitment is for its new office in Warsaw, Poland.

Point72 said last year that it was opening a new tech hub in Warsaw, and that it planned to recruit 150 people working across finance, technology and operations by the end of 2021. Some of those hires have already been made. Others are in process: of 42 global technology jobs advertised by Point72 currently, 30 are in Warsaw; 11 are in New York or Stamford; one is in Hong Kong or Singapore. 

It's not just major investment banks that are reporting first quarter results this week. Smaller banks and boutiques are reporting too. - PJT Partners went yesterday; Evercore went today. Unsurprisingly, Evercore also looks very healthy.

Revenues at Evercore were up 55% year-on-year to a record $662m in the first quarter; net income was up 363%. A 275% increase in underwriting fees helped drive growth thanks to what Evercore described as momentum across, "IPOs, follow-ons, convertibles and SPACs." 

Two years ago, I was a managing director at a major international bank in London, running a team of multiple in MDs. It was the culmination of a three decade career in finance during which I worked across major European and major U.S. investment banks. 

Now, headhunters won't talk to me.

Goldman Sachs is opening a new office in Birmingham. To read this site and others, you'd think this is the end of the world for London technologists. It's not. I live in Birmingham, and it's honestly very nice here. 

Most people writing about Birmingham have no awareness of the city and the greater metro area. Brum isn’t known  for shouting from the rooftops unfortunately, so this is unsurprising, but it's also worth setting the record straight. 

For a CEO with a retail banking background who hacked off entire business lines from the investment bank when he arrived, Christian Sewing at Deutsche Bank is now looking curiously dependent on precisely the division he set about to shrink.

A chart at the start of today's Deutsche Bank presentation underscores the new lopsided Deutsche Bank reality. Between the first quarter of 2020 and 2021, revenues at Deutsche Bank's investment bank rose by 35%. Over the same period, revenues in the corporate bank were flat and revenues in the private bank were flat. Over the past 12 months, revenues in most divisions were either flat or stable, except for the investment bank where they rose by 38%.

For someone who is generally considered to be a gifted communicator, Jamie Dimon might have struck a jarring tone in his latest letter to JP Morgan staff commanding them back to the office on a rotational basis from early July.  “We know that may of you are excited to come back, but we also know that for some, the idea of coming back on a regular basis is a change you’ll need to manage”. 

On a charitable reading, this might just be a reference to the need to sort out childcare arrangements and get someone to feed the lockdown chickens.  But it might also be taken as a bit patronizing.  The lockdown has been hard on many bankers, and has lasted longer than we might have initially expected, but we haven’t forgotten how to commute or become institutionalized.

For a CEO with a retail banking background who hacked off entire business lines from the investment bank when he arrived, Christian Sewing at Deutsche Bank is now looking curiously dependent on precisely the division he set about to shrink.

A chart at the start of today's Deutsche Bank presentation underscores the new lopsided Deutsche Bank reality. Between the first quarter of 2020 and 2021, revenues at Deutsche Bank's investment bank rose by 35%. Over the same period, revenues in the corporate bank were flat and revenues in the private bank were flat. Over the past 12 months, revenues in most divisions were either flat or stable, except for the investment bank where they rose by 38%.

Nearly one year on from the email sent by a PJT Partners' vice president asking why juniors weren't responding promptly at 3am, the incident appears to have done little to adversely impact PJT's appeal as an employer. In a presentation accompanying today's first quarter results, PJT said its staff are very happy and that it's been doing quite a bit of hiring. 

Founded by ex-star Morgan Stanley banker Paul Taubman in 2014, PJT specializes in M&A, capital raising and restructuring, particularly in the alternative asset sector (through its PJT Park Hill subsidiary). In the past six years it's gone from 353 to 753 employees and from 46 to 99 partners. Last year it added 11 new partners and four new employees. 

JPMorgan is letting its clients invest in an actively managed bitcoin fund for the first time. For all those who've been waiting for the ultimate indication that bitcoin is an enduring phenomenon and that working with bitcoin might be a good idea, this is it. Failing that, there's always the Twitter account of an ex-Goldman partner turned crypto-enthusiast to inspire you. 

As institutional investors espouse crypto, a wave of exchanges, crypto asset managers and payment and trading platforms is hiring. - And in many cases they're interested in precisely the types of technologists and market making professionals currently working for banks and funds.

Most people who go into banking nowadays don't intend to stay forever. - As one first year Goldman Sachs analyst told Wall Street Oasis, "The only benefits of working at GS are the exit opportunities." Some of the most appealing of all the exit opportunities involve private equity, where the pay is even more generous than in banking and is taxed very leniently if you're senior enough to receive carried interest. 

But if private equity is your aim, why bother with banking at all? Like Blackstone, more and more private equity funds run their own graduate recruitment programs. If you can get a place on one (if - Blackstone has 25,000 applications for 100 roles), you can sidestep 100-hour weeks in investment banking altogether. 

JPMorgan is letting its clients invest in an actively managed bitcoin fund for the first time. For all those who've been waiting for the ultimate indication that bitcoin is an enduring phenomenon and that working with bitcoin might be a good idea, this is it. Failing that, there's always the Twitter account of an ex-Goldman partner turned crypto-enthusiast to inspire you. 

As institutional investors espouse crypto, a wave of exchanges, crypto asset managers and payment and trading platforms is hiring. - And in many cases they're interested in precisely the types of technologists and market making professionals currently working for banks and funds.