Morning Coffee: Indignant asset management boss fired for failure to return to the office. 55-year-old project manager's 3,000 failed job applications

For a while, William Nieporte appears to have led a charmed life. He met some friends at high school, they founded an asset management firm, Bramshill Investments. Nieporte had a 12% stake in Bramshill and Bramsill had offices in New York, Florida and Newport Beach, California. But Nieporte didn't live in any of these places. He lived in San Ramon, California, a scenic city on the San Ramon Creek.

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San Ramon is 400 miles from Newport Beach, and so after he moved there in 2017, Nieporte didn't work in an office. As a co-founder of Bramshill and the chief operating officer and compliance officer, he worked from home.

This never seems to have been popular with Nieporte's other co-founders, whom Nieporte claims tried to force him out and made a low offer for his stake in 2021. However, things came to a head in April 2022, when Bramshill demanded that everyone return to the office five days a week by July. An email was sent to employees, signed by Nieporte and the cofounders, stating that "employees at will" could choose to return to the office or not, but that if they didn't, they would be fired.  Nieporte didn't. He was fired. Now he wants $30m for his stake and his lost earnings and profits.  

The Wall Street Journal has the details of the case, which Nieporte has brought against ADP Totalsource, a division of a payroll provider that shares employer responsibilities with Bramshill. ADP told the WSJ it will be defending the case and that it had complied with relevant laws. 

Nieporte, in turn, is arguing that the return-to-office missive didn't apply to him because he wasn't an employee of Bramshill but an actual owner. His co-founders don't seem to see it this way and have sent him an email stating: “We have both junior and senior employees commuting over one hour each way to work, and yet you feel this policy doesn’t apply to you.” This may be true. But if Nieporte commuted from San Ramon, though, it would take him six hours (each way). 

The case is reminiscent of the various senior bankers who moved to pleasant locations during COVID. Goldman's former head of M&A, Gregg Lemkau, famously worked in Hawaii, with a time difference of six hours behind New York. Lemkau left Goldman nine months after this sojourn began and allegedly had a "tiff" with David Solomon over his location. There are also plenty of instances of managing directors being less willing to return to the office than juniors, who live in small and maybe sweaty flats and can at least benefit from the space and air conditioning of the corporate zone. Bramshill is a new figurehead for MDs. He's now fully remote with a start-up. 

Separately, if you have a project management role in financial services then watch yourself. If you lose your job, it may not be easy to find a new one. 

The Times has spoken to Dee Coupland, a project manager who worked on a project updating a system at Lloyds Bank that came to an end in 2024 when her role was moved to India. Coupland has since applied for 3,000 jobs and has had no success. She's started applying for entry-level roles as a PA, but no one responds. She may need to sell her house. “It’s taken me to quite a dark place at times,” she says. “I have so much to offer an employer but can’t cut through.” 😢

Meanwhile...

Brendan Nelson, chair of HSBC, is 77 years old and and he travels to Hong Kong once a month. “Travel doesn’t bother me because I can sleep. I came back on that flight from Hong Kong and I slept for eight hours.” Nelson says he plans to stay in the job. He also says his wife isn't that keen. "I keep saying to her that I don’t do DIY and I don’t collect stamps, so what else am I going to do?” (The Times) 

Starling Bank is cutting 130 jobs in technology and operations. (Financial Times) 

Gary Stevenson: “I’ll be totally honest with you, I think I am one of the best, if not the best, inequality economists in the world." Asked if he gives money away, he says: “No. I’m not going to nail myself to the cross.”’ (The Times) 

Susquehanna Investment Group persuaded a New York judge to freeze the accounts of up to 100 options traders, who it says used inside information to book illegal profits against it by trading on inside knowledge about the Chinese government's plan to crack down on trading platforms. (Philadelphia Enquirer) 

The Bank of England pays interest on the reserves that commercial banks place with it. In theory it could raise up to £23bn by dividing the reserves into “tiers”, ceasing to pay interest on one tier, and requiring the banks to continue to keep that tier with the BoE. Reform wanted to raise £35bn like this. £5bn is more reasonable. (TaxPolicy) 

The problem for BlueCrest’s traders was the court said most of their pay was based on the profit they made from their own trading books. “Trying to push discretionary payments through the partnership tax breaks was always going to fail,” said another senior hedge fund executive. (Financial Times)  

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