The bankers & traders who deserved the biggest bonus increases this year
If you’re staring at your bonus check this year wondering what went wrong when your team seemed to do so well, have no fear: it was probably the guys next door to you.
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Data from market intelligence provider Tricumen suggests that, while revenue shot up across investment banking and sales & trading broadly, not every team did as well as one another.
Within fixed income, currencies, and commodities (FICC) trading, for example, Tricumen says revenues per head were roughly stable year-on-year in 2024. But there were big variations across product areas. Foreign exchange and credit traders produced 23% and 14% more revenue per head in 2024 than 2023. Commodities and rates traders were less productive by 30% and 9% across the same period, respectively.
In investment banking, the teams that did well in productivity terms were capital markets teams (both equities and debt – ECM and DCM, respectively), which were up 28% and 42% respectively, compared to an increase of only 11% in M&A. In equities sales & trading, equity derivatives outperformed cash equities 12% to 6%.
Changes in revenues per head are a good proxy for whether individuals deserve bonuses because they reflect changes in team size. If revenues rise solely by virtue of additional hiring, members of the team may not merit higher variable pay.
Front office teams might also benefit from this year's anecdotal decline in middle- and back-office payouts. One JPMorgan tech senior told us that his team’s bonus pool was down by 3%; "If you're close to the money, you seem to be ok,” a Citi salesperson said.
This fits with bonus expectations that were stated in December. Although financial services professionals as a whole told us that they expected their bonus pools to increase by 50%, revenue-generating professionals were twice as optimistic as those in control functions, such as risk.
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