Morning Coffee: Head of Barclays’ dark pool was fired by Goldman Sachs. Senior banker’s very lowly first jobs

It says something about Barclays’ desperation to build its dark pool that it was willing to hire an executive who’d just been fired by Goldman Sachs to fill it up. Investing.com reports that Barclays’ dark pool (AKA ‘The Franchise’) recruited David C. Johnsen, who’d just been ejected from Goldman as head of ‘Electronic Trading Business Development.’

What was Johnsen fired by Goldman Sachs for? No less than "concerns related to the performance of his supervisory responsibilities,” according to his BrokerCheck Report. Johnsen left Goldman in January 2012 and started at Barclays in March 2012. Any shortcomings in his supervisory responsibilities don’t seem to have been an issue for Barclays, where Johnsen was reportedly behind the now infamous email stating that the accuracy of marketing materials for the bank’s dark pool were secondary to the ‘objective of showing clients that Barclays monitors the trading’ there, however lightly. Thanks to the activities of Johnsen and his team, Barclays now faces a fine of more than £300m and its dark pool has been drained.  Let this be a message other banks: the people you recruit will shape your culture far more vigorously than any edicts from senior management commanding staff to be good.

Separately, Barrons reports that Brian Moynihan, chief executive of Bank of America, started working in some very non-prestigious jobs.  Moynihan, the son of a research chemist who grew up in Ohio, reportedly dug ditches for local sewer projects, worked afternoon shifts at a magnet factory and toiled as a busboy (someone who takes dirty dishes to the kitchen) for a local steakhouse. He got his first break in banking when he joined Fleet Boston in 1993 as Deputy Counsel. Lloyd Blankfein isn’t the only senior banker to prove that nepotism isn’t necessary to get ahead in banking (although it certainly helped in the case of Jamie Dimon.)

Meanwhile:

Bill White, head of Barclays’ equities electronic-trading operation, has been removed from daily work on the dark pool to deal with the lawsuit against the bank. (WSJ) 

Barclays has hired US law firm Wilmer Hale to represent the bank in the dark pools case. (The Times)

Deutsche Bank’s new Birmingham trading floor will have 270 seats. (Financial News)

Blackstone is setting up a hedge fund and has been quietly hiring hedge fund managers to start work in the autumn. (WSJ) 

JP Morgan banker James Haymore is arguing that the decision to fine him for taking his children out of school to attend a funeral is a breach of his human rights. (Telegraph)

Credit Suisse hired Joachim von der Goltz from UBS as head of its capital markets unit in Northern Europe. (Reuters)

Paul Taubman is poaching more Morgan Stanley bankers for his advisory boutique. (Reuters)

Deutsche Bank has hired a team of US oil and gas bankers from Citigroup. (Reuters) 

It is almost suspicious how good Credit Suisse has been at paying its bankers in the instrument that will perform best over subsequent periods. (Bloomberg)

BNP Paribas’ ban on dollar clearing only applies to "specific business lines, such as oil and gas transactions, and certain offices, such as Geneva." So the ban is "likely to be invisible for end-users," says an analyst. (Bloomberg) 

Global M&A is up 75% this year compared to 2013. (Financial Times) 

An independent Scotland would be even more exposed to its banking sector than Iceland was at the height of the financial crisis (if the country’s biggest institutions remained there.) (Telegraph) 

How this ex-banker retired at 34. (Telegraph) 

Overworked executives in China are increasingly dying from heart attacks, strokes and cerebral haemorrhage whilst at their desks. (BloombergView) 

10 words people who lack confidence always use. (Inc) 

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