Late Lunchtime Links: There may be no bonuses at all at RBS this year; what happens when Nomura becomes junk?
As we reported last week, RBS accrued no bonuses for its GBM employees in the third quarter and is thinking of cutting whatever was accrued in previous quarters.
It had been reported that RBS was going to pay 500m in bonuses in total, down from 950m last year. That is apparently too much: according to David Cameron, RBS bankers must get closer to nothing. Today, he said the 500m bonus pot is unacceptable and that the government will be letting its views known. This may be political posturing: in the past, RBS has argued that it needs to be pay its investment bankers, or set a limit on cash bonuses and avoided this with a delayed cash payment. This year could, however, be different.
Separately, Moody's is coming closer to downgrading Daiwa and Nomura to junk. What will their counterparties think of this? Will their traders still have a job to do? We shall see.
Total global headcount at the ten largest banks rose by 10,000 during the third quarter. (Financial News)
Resolution has plans to hire 15 fund managers from rivals as it brings fund management in house. This will save it 83m in fees... (The Times)
Goldman Sachs had $2.3bn funded exposure to Italy on September 30th; Morgan Stanley had $4.6bn; JPMorgan had $11.3bn; BAML had $6.4bn; Citigroup had $14.5bn. (Bloomberg)
BNP Paribas has Italian exposure of €28bn, Dexia exposure of €15.8bn, Credit Agricole exposure of €10.8bn, Soc Gen exposure of €8.8bn, Deutsche Bank exposure of €7.7bn. (TrueEconomics)
Goldman cut its exposure to French banks by 61% over three months. (Bloomberg)
Is Europe on the verge of another great depression - or a great inflation? (Baseline Scenario)
"We're preparing for some complicated quarters," said Credit Agricole Chief Executive Officer Jean-Paul Chifflet. (Bloomberg)
The European Financial Stability facility is looking for a head of operational asset & liability management unit to take charge of managing what has been put in place to bail out the eurozone. There is no mention of working hours. (Financial News)
HSBC's annual cost cutting will be entirely negated by the increased cost of being based in the UK. (Telegraph)
What's a bond trader? (Guardian)
In 1995 this man applied for what he thought was a security guard job, actually landed a position at Fidelity and by 2003 was running his own financial planning company. (New York Times)
