Morning Coffee: J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs rejected by the 21 year-olds they’d love to hire. UBS fixed income build continues
Pity the world’s most prestigious investment banks, for their deep and often proclaimed love of STEM students is not requited. Those fickle young engineers with an urge to “make an impact” and work on cutting edge technologies are giving banks’ legacy systems a miss and going straight for tech firms, or car companies, or FMCG companies, or oil companies. – Anything, anything but finance.
So says a new study of 149,000 engineering and IT students’ preferred employers by Universum, a research company. When asked for their ideal employers upon graduation, the students put Google, Microsoft, Apple, General Electric and the BMW Group in the top five slots. Only two banks featured in the top 50 – Goldman and J.P. Morgan – and they ranked 27th and 32nd respectively. In a further reflection of banks’ unpopularity among their chosen recruits, engineering and IT students said they’d rather work for L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, or the Coca-Cola Company (among others) than either of the biggest-name banks.
What’s the students’ problem? Universum suggests it might have something to do with banks’ bad image among their preferred hires. Banks didn’t gain plaudits for their “creative and dynamic work environment.” Nor did they come out on top for, “innovation.” The only thing Goldman ranked highly for was “high future earnings” and even here it was trounced by McKinsey & Co and Exxon Mobil...
Separately, something’s certainly going on at UBS. The Swiss bank, which has developed a recent habit for hiring fixed income traders from Goldman Sachs, is now stocking up on credit traders, formerly of Credit Suisse. UBS just hired Robert MacNaughton, the ex-head of head at distressed debt trading at its Swiss rival. MacNaughton retired from Credit Suisse last year, so on this occasion UBS will at least have been absolved of the need to pay a big guarantee.
Meanwhile:
Deutsche Bank wealth management wants to hire 100 new front office staff within 12 months and just recruited a new head of its UK business (Michael Morley from Coutts) to get things started. (Financial News)
Fund managers should resist the need to be seen to implement quantitative investment strategies. Good old yield curve analysis is perfectly adequate. (Quartz)
Fund manager articulates the key advantage of computers running machine learning programs: “They never sleep, do not go to the toilet, have no girlfriends or boyfriends.” (Bloomberg)
Reminder: Frankfurt has 75,000 people employed in financial services, London between 400,000 and 700,000 (estimates vary). While London is a global city, Frankfurt feels like a provincial outpost. (Financial Times)
Richard Rosenblum, former global head of crude oil and derivatives trading at Goldman Sachs just co-launched Rose Commodities, a hedge fund. (WSJ)
Working in adult entertainment is a terrible let down: “I definitely imagined it would be a lot more lucrative and easier. Fans think doing this job is pure fun and money, but that really isn't the case.” (Vice)
Seven years ago, the average Rolls Royce owner was 56. Now he’s 45. Soon they’ll be selling to Millennials. (Bloomberg)
People with money eventually ruin everything, and now they've gentrified sleeping in a van by the side of the road. (Bloomberg)
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com
