Lunchtime Links: Private equity professionals are now impoverished too

Hedge fund managers are undergoing a precipitous decline in their bonuses as returns fail to meet hurdle rates. Now it appears that private equity professionals are suffering the same fate.

Financial News today reports that partners in private equity firms are receiving substantially smaller carried interest payments and that the lower pay trend is likely to trickle down to more junior private equity people very soon.

Unsurprisingly, recruiters are also reported as saying that investment bankers are now less keen to go into private equity than they were. "If you are the best in investment banking, it is likely that you are still in quite a good position financially," one tells the paper.

Private equity funds have $400bn of debt requiring repayment over the next 5 years. (Financial Times)

Bob Diamond wants to hire another 1,000 people. (Bloomberg)

Pay at BarCap should double to 200k this year. (The Times)

Intention is for BarCap profits never to be more than a third of Barclays' total. (Guardian)

Soros is hiring star GLG hedge fund manager. (The Times)

Nomura hires a new head of global product control. (Marketwire)

HSBC hires former JPMorgan prop trader as head of European credit research. (FinancialNews)

Citadel wants to get in on the European government bond scene. (Wall Street Journal)

Hank Paulson asked Jamie Dimon to buy Morgan Stanley. (DealBook)

It seems that the GFC was the work of economists who wish that they were beer swilling, cocaine snorting, lap dancing club habitues irresistible to the opposite sex. (Wilmott)

Hold on. It will only be a couple more years until you can quit your job and become a tennis mom. (Alphaville)

Unemployed people sleep more, do more tidying and are more sociable. (NY Times)