Morning Coffee: Senior trader's career mistakenly ruined by the British regulator. SocGen still hiring in FICC

Traders in the City of London who have been affected by the LIBOR and FX-fixing investigations can draw comfort this morning from the case of Clive Roberts, the former head of equities at Exane BNP Paribas. Roberts was arrested back in 2010 after being accused of participating in an insider trading ring. Four years later, The Times reports that all the charges against him have been dropped.

Whilst this is clearly good news for Roberts, the investigation has not been great for his career. Having worked for RBS's equities business between 2001 and 2008, the FCA Register shows that Roberts moved to Exane for two years between 2008 and 2010.  However, Roberts hasn't worked at all since the investigation started in 2010, leaving him without an income for four years while the FCA's fruitless digging took place. Roberts is now free to look for a new role, but after four years out of the market who will take him? His lawyer, Jeremy Summers of Slater & Gordon, welcomed the restoration of Robert's good name whilst pointing out that he had not worked "for some time". The FCA declined to comment. Compensation is obviously out of the question.

Separately, are French banks the place to be if you want to find a new job in fixed income sales and trading? BNP Paribas and SocGen have a few side issues in the form of $3bn of US fines (BNP Paribas) and heavy exposure to Russia (SocGen), but both banks are going for growth. SocGen aspires to achieve annual revenue growth across the bank of 3% through to 2016.  Across all businesses BNP wants to deliver a similar 'double digit percentage revenue rise over the next three years.' 

Fixed income currencies and commodities revenues (FICC) have been falling, but SocGen for one seems untroubled by this. Frédéric Oudéa, chief executive of SocGen, told the Financial Times that SocGen continues to hire in some areas of fixed income and is benefiting from the historical petite-ness of its business there. "We don’t need to create a bad bank, we do not have legacy issues,” he told the FT. Accompanying strategy slides suggested that SocGen wanted to, '"extend leadership in equity derivatives and selected fixed income areas". BNP Paribas has been less vocal about its FICC aspirations, but has been quietly making some senior appointments in fixed income and is said still to be hiring by headhunters in London.

Meanwhile:

BNP Paribas wants to hire 1,300 bankers in Asia but has lost seven out of nine people from its Asian equity sales team over the past nine months. (Reuters) 

Credit Suisse has been making some quiet redundancies in FX. (Bloomberg) 

EON has hired Patrick Barouki, the former head of power and natural gas trading at Barclays. (Bloomberg) 

Fixed income bonuses will probably fall 15% this year. Equity bonuses will probably fall 10%. M&A and asset management bonuses will probably rise. (Bloomberg) 

Alastair Blackman, the head of media banking at Credit Suisse, is leaving – even though media banking revenues are at their peak now. (Financial News) 

Morgan Stanley has hired Brad Whitman, a senior FIG banker from Barclays. (Reuters) 

Piers Davison has been named JPMorgan’s new FIG head in London. (Financial News) 

The different species of sex discrimination, and how to deal with them. (New Scientist) 

Anthony Noto, Goldman’s key technology banker, just left for a hedge fund. (Quartz)

Mr Noto joined Goldman as a research analyst during the first tech boom in 1999 and returned for the second in 2010 after a three-year stint as chief financial officer to the National Football League. (Financial Times)

Wall Street went into the crisis, "white, male and middle aged." It came out "whiter, male-er and middle age-er." (CNN)

Bosses prefer people who start their days early. (HBR) 

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