Morning Coffee: What JPMorgan pays elite and mediocre students it hires. Bank accused of #MeToo hypocrisy

If there were any doubts that it makes financial sense to go to a top university and get top grades, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has put them to rest. In discussions of the amount JPMorgan pays its average entry level employee, Dimon flagged the yawning gap JPMorgan's elite and its also-rans.

The average entry-level employee at JPMorgan is paid between $35k and $37k a year (£26k to £28k), plus healthcare and retirement benefits, said Dimon last week.  This isn't bad, he told listening journalists: plenty of other industries pay junior employees far less. 

Needless to say, however, JPMorgan can also pay its entry level staff far more. Dimon didn't say where the $37k earners work in the bank, but it's probably safe to assume they're tellers in the JPMorgan Chase U.S. retail network. - If you join JPMorgan's investment bank, you'll make many multiples of that amount.

How many multiples? JPMorgan doesn't disclose junior investment banker pay, but two recent salary and bonus surveys from London recruitment firms Dartmouth Partners and Arkesden Partners put pay for first year analysts (the lowest rung in the investment banking division, who deal with M&A and other corporate finance work) at around £88k and £80k ($104k to $115k) respectively. 

At best, only a couple of thousand JPMorgan juniors get these kinds of salaries, and it's fair to assume they're heavily outnumbered by their contemporaries on $35-37k. Our analysis suggests that to get a front office (sales and trading or investment banking) job at JPMorgan it helps to attend one of 25 elite universities, including the London School of Economics, New York University or Columbia. You'll also to need to jump through hoops like a digital interview comparing you to current high-performing staff. It would appear to be worth it: if you succeed, you'll be on a different pay track from the start. 

Separately, an incident at HSBC demonstrates the discrepancy between what banks say about #MeToo and what they do, plus the rather obvious need to ensure that the bankers preaching cultural reform aren't themselves subject to allegations of reprehensible behaviour.

The incident in question relates to last year's 'issues' surrounding Thibaut de Roux, HSBC's former head of global markets. Roux stands accused of 'repeatedly rubbing' a female analyst's leg under a table at the Ai Fiori restaurant in New York and of engaging in 'unwanted petting.' The next day, he allegedly called her several times and asked her to bring documents to his office. The woman declined and left the building after talking to a senior manager. HSBC says it subsequently, "conducted a thorough investigation." This took four months and sometime before or after its completion Roux decided to retire anyway.

However, Roux's exit from HSBC only came about after he first spoke at an HSBC townhall in August 2018 (while the investigation was underway) and proseltyized about company culture. "Conduct is first a culture," he proclaimed to thousands of HSBC's markets employees attending the townhall. One, Mark Miller, head of institutional sales for HSBC Americas in New York, was aware of the complaints about Roux and so complained himself. “I for one never want to be lectured to by Thibaut again about conduct,” he wrote in an email, demanding immediate action. The woman left in December and today Miller no longer works for HSBC either. De Roux’s successor, Georges Elhedery, says the bank is all about creating, “the healthiest human system in global markets.”

Meanwhile:

Christian Sewing will still be in charge of Deutsche Bank after a merger with Commerzbank. (Reuters) 

Ex-Cazenove and New Star Asset Management executives are setting up 'Hiddensee Research' to equity research written by ex-equity researchers who are working on a freelance basis. (Financial News)

Ravi Singh, a former Goldman Sachs executive who joined Barclays' chief investment office in New York, has left again. (Business Insider) 

U.S. law firm Shearman & Sterling said to offer good pay for reasonable working hours, although you will need your phone "surgically attached." (RollonFriday) 

If you work for Jack Ma's Alibaba Chinese ecommerce platform you need to work 9am to 9pm six days a week, or '996'. "To be able to work 996 is a huge bliss,” said Ma. (Bloomberg) 

Someone invented a new method of multiplying things very quickly. (QuantaMagazine) 

The non-university jobs that pay $75k to $100k. (Bloomberg) 

In New York: “Less than 100,000 people pay half the taxes. They leave, we have a big problem very quickly." (Financial Times) 

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