What 50-something bankers actually do all day. How to dress to avoid the chop at Deutsche Bank

You're a 55-year-old M&A banker with a phone full of CEOs and an impressively low golf handicap. You've orchestrated some transformative M&A deals and once received a $15m bonus. You are a legend in your universe. So, what do you do all day?

The answer, is that you do not have fun. And, mostly, do you not cruise around schmoozing clients. In an interview with the Financial Times, Hugh (Skip) McGee, the ex-head of Barclays Investment Bank in the US and M&A supremo bemoans his life at the British behemoth.

“Between regulatory compliance and internal bureaucracy I found myself spending 80% of my time on non-client activities, which is really not fun,” complains McGee.

What with all that boring box-ticking and managerialism, McGee - who quit Barclays last year and now runs a boutique, says there's only one thing he misses about working for a big bank and that's hanging out with celebrity sportsmen. At Barclays, he seemingly got to fraternize with Phil Mickelson, a superstar golfer whom the bank sponsors. At least there were some perks.

Separately, if you want to get ahead at Deutsche Bank, you need to get in with John Cryan. The new CEO is reportedly preparing to front-load cost cuts when he announces Deutsche's new strategy in late October. In the circumstances, it may be unwise to appear allied to former CEO Anshu Jain who is said to have stalked the corridors of Deutsche dressed in Hugo Boss suits and Prada Shoes. Cryan, by comparison, wears suits made by a London tailor and carries an old black leather satchel according to the  Financial Times. 

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