Late Lunchtime Links: It's ok - there will not be tens of thousands of redundancies; 45k A MONTH for Goldman's philanthropy guy
If you've been reading Bloomberg this morning and are worried about your job, don't be.
Citing the latest report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the CBI, Bloomberg says an estimated 45,000 jobs could go in the British financial services industry over the next six months.
This may be true, but those jobs are not likely to go in the City of London.
Whilst the full report from PWC/the CBI does suggest intense gloominess over jobs in the 'banking' sector as a whole, this applies mostly to retail banking. By comparison, wholesale banking operations are far more optimistic.
Therefore, while a balance of 58% of respondents were pessimistic about employment over the next three months in the 'banking' sector of the report, a balance of 71% of respondents were optimistic in securities trading (far more than the 4% of this time last year.) Equally, a balance of 38% of asset managers felt good about staffing prospects for the next three months. Conclusion: if there are redundancies, they will be elsewhere.
Separately, you may or may not remember the 10,000 women programme Goldman Sachs had the misfortune to launch in Europe on the morning of Lehman's demise. Designed to help fund businesses for women in the developing world, the programme has been used by Goldman as proof that it's a great global citizen.
According to a Harvard Business Review blog, Goldman paid 10,000 woman's progenitor, the ex-Bill Clinton aide Gene Spurling, massively over the odds to put the programme together. Having requested to be paid like a "top lawyer or dealmaker", Spurling reportedly got $70k (45k) a month. HBR says this was substantially above the norm for charity work and merely illustrates the massive pay differential in financial services compared to everywhere else.
Investment bankers at HSBC, who are usually paid in mid-February, have been told that this year they must wait until after the results are published on February 27. (Telegraph)
"The government should take action on Stephen Hester's bonus," Miliband told a press conference in London today. "He shouldn't get the scale of bonus that's being talked about." (Bloomberg)
Mr Hester owns a London townhouse, a 350-acre Oxfordshire estate and a ski chalet in Verbier. (Telegraph)
The FSA paid PWC 7.6m for the RBS report. (Bloomberg)
Wikileaks won't publish documents concerning a US bank immediately. (Bloomberg)
The last big proprietary trading team at Goldman Sachs has begun raising money to start a new hedge fund independent of the bank. (Financial Times)
New staff assessment models take into consideration risk-adjusted returns, compliance and efficient use of the bank's capital. (Financial News)
UBS has reorganised its FICC structuring team after Paul Czekalowski, global head of FICC structuring, left. (Financial News)
Rabobank has hired a senior fixed income strategist from RBC. (Bloomberg)
Bad bank coming for BarCap? (Alphaville)
Hugh Hendry compares prejudice against hedge fund managers to prejudice against Romany gypsies. (Businessweek)
Bankers want to spend their bonuses on at least 30 acres within commuting distance of London. (The Times)
Drugs are readily available at JPMorgan. (Telegraph)
GCHQ is grooming children as young as 12 as future employees. (The Times)
A new "employers' charter" will allow companies to sack workers during the first two years of their employment without the threat of being taken to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. (Telegraph)
