Morning Coffee: Good luck to the JPMorgan MD tasked with helping Gen Z work less. The Morgan Stanley banker who turned down a $5,000 wine
One of the iron rules of banking (and any other industry), often learned the hard way, is that HR work for the company, not you. They might be friendly, they might be genuinely sympathetic and want to help, but when the chips are down, they are employees too.
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Who knows, Ryland McClendon at JPMorgan might be the exception to this rule? Contrary to all the claims that JPMorgan has assigned a "banker" to prevent its juniors working too hard and oversee its new 80-hour week rule, McLendon's most recent career at the bank has been in HR. She’s actually a senior human resources professional, who left a coverage role in 2018 and has since climbed the ranks to Managing Director in jobs from campus recruiting, DEI and most recently Head of Talent and Career Development Experience.
In her new job, McLendon is JPMorgan's inaugural “global investment banking associate and analyst leader”, appointed to “support their wellbeing and success, as well as equip and enable them to deliver for our business, clients and each other”, according to a memo.
The combination of title and job description almost makes this sound like an equivalent position to a junior bankers’ trade union leader, someone to whom the kids can come to with complaints about excessive hours and bad behaviour. But that might be a bit of a naïve assessment.
You don’t reach the rank of MD at JPMorgan without a bit of steel in your spine, but McLendon's career so far seems to have been about helping people develop and grow. Junior bankers with legitimate grievances might find her door open, but anyone wanting to leave a live deal because they’ve reached 45 hours will probably be getting a sympathetic but firm conversation about how clients come first, and that if you can’t cope with the physical pressure then there are lots of fulfilling jobs outside investment banking.
Elsewhere, according to the recently published autobiography of former Softbank CFO Alok Sama, Masayoshi Son is a master of mind games. He tells the story of his first meeting with the eccentric billionaire, when he was an MD at Morgan Stanley and Softbank wanted to recruit him.
“Masa’s valet Kato-san glided into the room, attired assassin-like in black suit, white shirt and skinny black tie, and offered a pour from an open bottle of Riesling. In impeccable English, he asked if I’d prefer red wine instead, displaying an unopened red Burgundy bottle. I did a double take when I saw the label—La Tâche. At over $5,000 a bottle, out of reach for even the most inflated expense accounts. Tempting, but I followed Masa’s lead and accepted a small pour of the exquisite dry Riesling.”
For a certain kind of banker, this is the most exquisite torture; seeing the opportunity to taste incredibly expensive booze for free, but feeling constrained by sell side etiquette. It’s a clash of the two great drives of bankerdom – the drive to win deals, and to enjoy treats. We hope Sama doesn’t feel any regrets about the decision he made.
Meanwhile …
Unfortunately, if banks really want to make a difference to junior working hours in London, New York or Hong Kong, it's likely to involve outsourcing work to juniors in India, who are often out of sight and out of mind. In India, a young accountant died recently after only four months of extreme overwork at a local subsidiary of EY; even in Spain, the big four consultancies have been fined by the government for persistent breaches of the labour laws and failure to keep records of working hours. (Hindustan Times)
Dimitry Balyasny doesn’t see any immediate end to the “pod shop talent war” that has seen multistrategy funds compensation bills go through the roof. As he points out, “the percentage split between the owners and the players hasn’t changed”, all that’s happened is that the overall size of the funds has grown. (Pensions & Investments Online)
Some more background on the Apple Card affair, including the wonderful line “Goldman Sachs is not used to being treated like a vendor”. (Bloomberg)
Although the first few months of returns have been so-so, the Jain Train continues to rattle on in terms of hiring; Jain Global is now up to 250 employees worldwide, up from 150 at the time of launch. (Financial News)
Former fund manager and current business school professor suggests that rather than wasting their summer on internships, wannabe bankers should learn interpersonal skills, attention to detail and how to handle pressure by working as beach lifeguards. And they’d have a better time. (FT)
If the hedge funds started by former employees of Tiger Global are called “Cubs”, then maybe the large number of spin-offs from other big multi-strategy firms should be “Citazens” or “Millennials”? (Bloomberg)
DC Advisory, the investment banking arm of Daiwa, has hired Andrew Murray-Lyon and James Sutch from Houlihan Loukey as coverage MDs in healthcare and business services. With 34 senior hires in the last two years, the Japanese bank seems to be quietly building up significant global scale. (Financial News)
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