Thursday, October 16, 2008
Remember The Titans
|
I think what I’m going to miss most is the elitism.
Though I’ve never worked in finance, for the past three years, I have been exploring the culture of young investment bankers on this website. Through a mix of fake articles and first and third person stories, I’ve attempted to bring light to topics ranging from the “glamorous,” nightlife and fashion, to the geeky, obsessive attention to detail and technical wizardry in Excel. The responses I’ve received and the comments left here have often offered even deeper insight into the psyche of the young banker / wannabe banker, and they’ve illustrated that one sentiment resonated more than any other: elitism.
What others don’t realize is that at the junior levels, everyone in banking makes relatively the same amount of money, and as such, bankers cling to an intricate hierarchy devised to rank institutions, groups within institutions, and individuals within those groups.
This site has seen comments (taken verbatim), like:
“Hey Wachovia bankers, what are you guys going to spend your $600 economic stimulus checks on?”
And polls:
Which would you rather be?
(A) An M&A MD at Jeffries
(B) A PWM VP at Bear
(C) A trade settlement analyst at Lehman
(D) A HR intern at GS
(E) A janitor at Citadel
For as long as I can remember, friends of mine used the names of boutique banks to refer to anything struggling or broken down—cars, clothes, electronics. I’ve seen a guy who himself worked at a boutique fail at picking up a girl and then bow his head in shame and say to himself: “Damn. That was so Piper Jaffray-ish of me.”
Then even lower down the totem pole came corporate lawyers, risk management, and the back office. But the ultimate insult—“retail banker”—was one that signified you had the horrific task of interacting with everyday, normal people. Absolutely disgusting.
I came to love this brand of humor. I relished the concept of people who found themselves to be elite being outdone by those who were widely recognized as being even more prestigious. And that’s what drove this website.
Throughout the credit crunch, elitism has been one of the last few fibers holding together the morale of the younger ranks of Wall Street. The fall of Bear Stearns could be attributed to their unrefined, “meathead” culture. Even if bonus outlooks were grim, you could look to your colleague and say “At least we don’t work in North Carolina,” and then make a Bank of America crack. Deal flow could literally be non-existent in private equity or your hedge fund could be down 20%, but hey—buy side, strong side. And as I’ve been trying to publicize my now more overtly ironic than intended book, Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker, in the wake of this crisis, I, too, have been clutching dearly to elitism as a safe, time-tested comedic device.
For awhile, I’d known the situation was grim, but the sheer gravity of it all didn’t really hit until a recent dinner for a friend’s birthday at a midtown steakhouse. I had been following the news closely, but it was there, in the thick of it, that I realized just how messed up things had gotten.
It was a meal like any other, but when the check came to our table and we all pulled out our credit cards (to split, not roulette it, sadly), my friend Clay, a Lehman Brothers trader, was hesitant. For some reason, Clay insisted: “We should all just pay cash, guys.” Nervously, he added: “You know, it’ll just be easier and faster.”
My other friend at the table, Jeff, an ex-strategy consultant now working “in industry,” has always been the bottom rung of the totem pole, consistently berated for his impoverished, not hard-enough working ways. Jeff normally can’t even get a word in edgewise without his pathetic stories being trumped by the retelling of some grand act of financial deftness. But this week, he was confident. A smile of pure bliss crept across Jeff’s face as he motioned with his head towards Clay and whispered loudly: “looks like someone’s a little scared of leverage.”
Jeff’s insolence—a total disruption of the pecking order—was just one of a series of signs that the game had officially changed; the entire system had flipped. The Wall Street Journal reported that boutique banks, once laughed at for hiring only the most unqualified, were now well-positioned to succeed due to their lower capital requirements. Bank of America, the ungodly Middle America-serving beast in North Carolina, had established itself as a Wall Street powerhouse. And most devastating, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley could now take deposits as retail banks. When I heard the news that Sunday, something inside of me died.
Even on here, the non-finance people are perking up, posting cutting comments like:
“That’s great GS and MS will be adding some new ATMs around the world so I can withdraw my already fat Tech paycheck and not worry about the government.”
“Bottles & Models” says:
“Times are tough. I must drop the letter ‘S’ from appearing in my name until things rebound.”
Sure, I’ll join my friends in making a few, last-ditch efforts to revive that tingly feeling of superiority, swatting away the economic postulations of reporters, hipsters, and housewives deriding bankers as “clueless.” “It’s like celebrities talking about politics,” or “Blind people discussing art,” I’ll say, neglecting my own irony.
It’s half-hearted though, and ultimately, I’ve come to accept that the structure we’ve all loved for so long is now completely obsolete. I don’t exactly understand how certain institutions will change in the future, but I do know one thing—we must not let their great acts of the past be forgotten.
So as we move into this new era where everyone’s vying for a job at Raymond James and Goldman Sachs checks are bouncing at grocery stores in Idaho, I implore you to at least keep the memories of the good old days alive. In a couple years, when someone calls his brand new Ferrari “Piper Jaffray-ish,” or Charlotte, NC is the new epicenter of the financial world, I want you to recount the stories of our generation’s firms. Teach your children about the days when even uttering the name Morgan Stanley made college students faint. Read them the pre-2008 league tables, and make your sons and daughters memorize them alongside the ones for multiplication. Do whatever it takes to keep the legend of Wall Street as it was truly intended live on. When you think back on investment banking of the early 21st century, remember the heat—remember the passion. But mostly, remember the titans.
What's News?
↵ Ex-Investment Banker and pending Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel says America lacks “attention to detail.”
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
uhh posts like this are not helping! not even LSO is insulated from this mess? If I can’t count on this what can I count on?!
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
Oh silly author…dont you realize that elitism is in the eye of the beholder? For anyone who has never worked in finance 2 key points should be clarified- 1. People in finance can, should, do and always will look down on people in almost every other profession, and 2. The buyside will always be superior
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Almost brought a tear to my eye…
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
this is like the day i found out santa isn’t real
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
Quality Post.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
the halcyon days are over…
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
tear !(
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:25 am
Awesome, great write up. Thanks for the stories!
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
so is the website finished?
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:49 am
wow…this one touched me in all the right places…
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
So is this the end of the road my friend?
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
i was hoping that this would be your good-bye. alas, it is my fate to be disappointed.
tt123
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:57 am
I’m a former 2nd-year M&A Analyst at Lehman Bros. I attended an elite Ivy League school. Yet, upon Lehman’s collapse, I was forced to move back in with my parents in Upstate New York. I now recently just got a job as an ‘Opening Coordinator’ at a local Chuck-E-Cheese. It’s a completely new location for CEC that I’m helping to open. I’ve already helped host a few birthday parties. I figure, hey, at least I’m bringing some joy to the lives of little children. Yet I find that, unlike two years ago when I was picking up models at Tenjune, girls only laugh at me now in my Chuck-E-Cheese uniform. The ones I manage to actually pick up merely give me their phone numbers out of pity. One of the few minor joys remaining in my miserable life was this website. I still dreamed of someday returning to my career in finance. Knowing that someone like Logan/LSO was out there laughing at the crisis, calling it ‘Darwinism for Bankers’, helped me imagine that maybe the crisis wasn’t so bad. So finding out that Logan wasn’t real was truly, as someone rightly pointed out, like the day you found out that Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny weren’t real. All hope is lost. Nothing will ever be the same again.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
*tears up*
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
It’s so strange to hear all this hoo-haa about Finance being the deal - in Europe finance is rather lookd down upon i.e. people who really do have money do not need to work in finance. Old Money is usually in charities, auction houses, education, arts… Kids with money don’t need to go slave away in banks because they don’t need to, and can do much more interesting things with their lives.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
As a 1st year analyst at an ibank, I hope you don’t start writing about the world of medical doctors or some other industry
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Really? You’re going to punk out now? What about all of the crazy shit ex-finance girls are doing with their free time, or the hysteria ripping through what’s left of banking groups and trading floors…
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Eleanor-
Americans define themselves by what they do and regardless of their parents income, see their own income as the preeminent measure of their worth. While I’d certainly take the european approach if my parents would allow it, I know plenty of kids with “generational wealth” who chose to work in finance. Call it the puritan work ethic, the meritocracy, whatever. Even the american aristocracy succumbs…
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Erroneous… Erroneous on all accounts
Finance is and always will be a source of envy for those inside & outside the limelight.
Sure the game changed but real players evolve
The E.F Huttons, Salomons and DLJs were caught with their pants down
Now it’s the Lehmans, Bears and Merrills
Smith Barney’s purchase of Salomon Brothers (once a powerhouse where the likes of John Merriwether worked) provides a nice comp for the BOA - Merrill fiasco.
America has a short memory and once we figure out a new way help average schlubs obtain a P.O.S corvette, we will be in their good graces again.
Find me a better occupation….
The steadiness of the legal & medical professions is a joke
All my life, I heard “stay in school”, “get your JD”, “become a doctor”… For what???
So I can get a job making 150k a year?
How am I suppose to drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis and take trips to Grand Caymen 10 times a year doing that???
And while your Big Law friends may have a smirk on their faces now, its only a matter of time until they are summarizing our credit agreements and fixing us drinks.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Remember the time you spanked your admin for stapling a presentation in the wrong corner… Remember the time you made the janitor cry for vacuuming at 1:00am while you were finishing up a pitch… Remember the girls you never called or the ass you never got because you slept/ate/jerked off in your cube 24×7… You bet your pimpled, chubby ass you do.
But most of all my pathetic, unemployed peons: Remember that, even with the shitty markets and huge job cuts, management fees keep coming in the door. Remember what your working class mother always hoped you’d become. Remember that you never were and (especially now) never will be ready for the buyside.
Good luck with the grad school apps, you bunch of useless bitches.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Self-awareness is the ultimate state of enlightenment. Too bad it took a financial armageddon to make it happen, not very impressive.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
@ Anon 1:12. OK, point taken, I know plenty of kids too who work in finance even though they could do something else. It is prestigious. But now - how prestigious is it really when half of the gits in IB are so damn dumb we can’t help but take the piss out of them? Maybe not so prestigious anymore, especially after this year’s deluge. Also, all this self-mythologising which LSO so brilliantly satirises… I am not against finance as such, and I find the banker-bashing completely simplistic and ignorant, but I just think defining oneself by one’s income is… well, maybe you’re right, certainly more wide-spread in America than in Europe.
@ The Loan Arranger. ‘Better occupation’? But hey, kids, are you serious? As much as I hear from my friends/dates/acquiantances - it’s miserable… I know not a single analyst, associate (or VP) who has ever admitted to enjoying their job: what I hear is dismal stuff, really gruesome stories from all over, you name it, GS, MS, Rothschild’s, Lazard, Credit Suisse… So I don’t know. You tell me. You enjoy your job?
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
credit crunch? what credit crunch. im going to grate chee even more. in fact im gonna fly to switzerland and buy some moose chee.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
true ballers dont care about the integration of african americans onto our football team but rather learn to adapt to the situation and ball out even harder than before because there are always positives that come from negatives and if you play your cards right those positives could be huge.
Whos gonna be on the next bus, i know im gonna have shotgun but we are certainly gonna see the bus coming and it is probably going to look like a bus in downtown bangladesh where people are holding to the outside for dear life
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Banking aint dead
We just on hiatus…
Akin to “A Break In The Tracks”
We just transitioning…
Waiting to finance the next bubble
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
quality. glad you got rid of the shit that was up last week. give you a pass as you were not thinking clearly with all the shit going on. i have less cash, but i am still pimpion da ho’s and being a true baller……
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Shitty, deal flow getting you down? Damn it feels good to be an accountant! I may not make as much in bull markets, but I still get paid when the shit hits the fan suckas! Enjoy the layoffs boys! I hear needle point can consume a lot of spare time…and to all the female bankers out there now’s a good time to consider maternity leave.
Best of luck to you all.
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I don’t know, ‘Benny’, sounds like the only cheese you’ll be grinding will be at Chuck-E-Cheese like the ‘Former Analyst’ turned ‘Opening Coordinator’ above.
I’m varsity, chump, you JV.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
The Kings are dead…Long live the Kings!
Now maybe we can get back to deals that make sense without massaging the thin-cap rules…
As a former analyst, all I want to say is…Buy side will always rule…Financial Sponsors groups will always get shafted…and your Director will always have no clue about the detail. High level baby! All the way!
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:10 pm
http://www.vimeo.com/1616061
whoops- wrong career choice, better luck next time around.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
What are your all’s thoughts on Institutional S&T
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
What’s better than the buyside?
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
The day a fucking consultant mouths off to me at the dinner table is the day I fucking kill a consultant at the dinner table.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:49 am
I mentioned this website to an M&A associate at a JPM recruitment drive last night. Earlier in the conversation I’d asked him a typical wannabe question ‘How do I stand out’ (translate: How do I be like you).
But, as these ‘conversations’ are conducted with 15 other starry eyed, sweaty palmed hopefulls, hanging on the words of a man in the industry and nodding vigorously at every sentence I’d failed to do just that, stand out.
However at the mention of LSO there was a glint of recognition and suddenly I was placed above my compeitiors who could only look on in longing and admiration whilst quaffing free wine and voraciously scoffing canapes. We had a conversation about banking culture (which was my way of covertly asking about bonus and salary predictions, I understand that doing this explicitly is a taboo at recruitment drives), about other banks (JPM employees ramming Citi) and about his future with the company (during which I made an inappropriate joke about bankers throwing themselves in front of trains… whoops). To keep a long story short I did some successful networking and it was thanks to your site.
I imagine the majority of readers had come to the conclusion that Logan was too charicature to be anything other than fictional. And that the stories of banking superstardom are a departure from reality. Bankers themselves have been quick to deny that they buy bottles, focusing instead on hard work and commitment. However the banks are still recruiting, and those they are recruiting from are graduates who have been fed on this stuff. Stories of bakning excess are our bread and butter. When I mentioned the LSO video with the banker pouring a red bull into a bottle of Grey Goose he gave a sort of comic snort. No one else around me picked up on it, but I knew that snort was one of recognition, acknowledging that no matter how bad times became that banker spirit remained strong.
I’ve been following site since I first came across it, and I know I’m not the only one. When I shook the JPM bankers hand with the firm assertive-without-trying-to-be-dominant I’ve been practising for the last five weeks I knew what was up. He was entrusting not just me but the post-credit crunch graduates as a whole with a dream. That dream is how banking should be, and once we’re in there it’s how banking will be again.
Ofcourse, if the chap I was speaking to at risk has anything to do with it I’m working for them and apparently have no choice about it. I don’t want to dwell on what that might imply about my character.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:16 am
accounting firms are going to take over
October 24th, 2008 at 6:14 am
the end of an era? or just a period of restructuring, im sure the bankers will come out with new ways of financing
October 24th, 2008 at 7:36 am
HEDGEmony,
Was that supposed to say HEDGEmoney? Dipshit.
Since you bitches won’t have any bonuses this year, I’m pretty sure I’m making more than anyone lower than a VP…if you still even have a job. If you broke ass bitches want to stay out of your parents’ basement, welcome to consulting.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:20 am
M&A is, and will always be, the Pride of Finance.
Companies will decide to merge, whether you like it or not; and whether financial markets are upside down or not. Lots of lawyers, consultants etc depend on that as well.
So you fellas can say whatever you like about the death of the IBD. Only time will tell.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:38 am
M&A is the pride of finance? Spoken like a true M&A douche bag!
$$$$ is what counts. S&T will always be king.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I’m not going to lie, your posts are really sucking lately. I am going to quit reading this crap, it’s worse than when Evelyn is disrupting me, talking about godiva chocolates when all i want to do is listen to the new robert palmer tape. get some class, and some cash. get a pension for oliver peoples glasses and valentino couture suits. try spending thousands on a jean paul gaultier overnight bag. logan or lso, absolutely lame. for all of you want to be posters saying you working in ibanking, ive had enough of your lies. get a degree from harvard at 15 like me, get your mba from harvard at 17 like me. dont get caught up in that yale, closet homosexual coke shit.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
hedgemony
n., pl. -nies.
The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.
you are the dipshit
October 24th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
it sucks being unemployed…
October 24th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Wow Still Employed - did you go to a STATE SCHOOL or something??? Don’t know what hegemony means LMFAO.
Your pathetic command of the English vocabulary speaks volumes about your upbringing, education, future job prospects, and overall worth as a human being. I hope you enjoyed your time at Syracuse…
October 24th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Pierce & Pierce: you mean “penchant,” not “pension”
HEDGEmony/still employed?: The proper spelling is “hegemony.” There is no “d.” Still employed?’s definition is astute, though, and I appreciate his contribution otherwise.
hth.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
No can do, got an 8:30 res at Dorsia
October 24th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Really? Really!?! Are consultants…even accountants, trying to brag to me on this website?
I can handle having a few acquaintances and threesomes with brilliant girls from Mckinsey who simply preferred a 60 hour work week (and are far hotter and less stressed than banker chicks), but some of the accountants on this page need to know just how impressed we are with your Bannana Republic cufflinks, pimpin’ apt on 81st and York and the 660 you got on the math section of the SAT - after paying The Princeton Review for a 10 week course to boost your raw score of 590.
At the MOST, you are allowed to go back to your sandboxes and smile SILENTLY that for one year, and one year only, your annual bonuses will in the same ballpark as ours.
As for the PARTNER at an account firm- you’re like an officer in the Coast Guard making fun of the Navy Seals.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
…and PE, stop hating on the bankers. You were once there too…
October 24th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
feed me a stray cat
October 24th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I dont know about you guys, but im fairing quite well… Just had another redbull, getting ready for a long friday night! Now quit your whining & bitching, you guys sound like a bunch of retail banking pansies!
October 24th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Bragging about accounting is just sad - why dont you brag about your Toyota or your whack girlfriend or getting a handjob? Because they suck, just like accounting. Your job is simply to add up how much money I make; yes, it’s so much I have to hire your dumb ass to do it, but hey you’re cheap and speak english.
Sure you still have a job, and one nobody else wants, but I made more money in the last year then you will the next five.
I’m heading south to Argentina to ride out the storm and spend some of the fortune I’ve amassed - bottles and models continues.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
“Hmmm………………….” high school varsity maybe. yo hmm can you set me up a tee time for 11:15 and bring a couple friends and you may be able to get to carry my bag
October 24th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Still Employed- I’m happy to hear that you still have your BALLER consulting job. Nobody makes “real money” collecting salary working for someone else- especially consultants.
Comparing your salary to junior bankers in an economic downturn is like saying I could outrun an Olympic sprinter the day after they’ve been in a car crash; when they recover they’re going to kick your ass.
The skills you develop, contacts you make, and the work ethic you build in investment banking supersedes the chart making skills developed in consulting. With the exception of some ‘rockstars’ from Bain and McKinsey, its the ex-investment bankers that run the private equity / hedge fund worlds, and that lead transactions at the world’s largest organizations. Consulting is used to check a box for diligence or as an insurance policy for boards to justify risky decisions to shareholders. Don’t get me wrong- I’m sure its fun flying to random towns in Kansas to interview middle management about ‘the perceived efficiency of their data management systems’- its just nothing I would brag about. If you could “buy bottles with Starwood points” maybe I’d be impressed.
Two words for you bitch: “Carried Interest”
I’ll let you know if I need help formatting a pie chart.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Sorry, guys, there are no Titans in this comment thread, nor were there any in the industry below the age of 30 for the last several years, except in their own fevered brains.
Reading this site, and your comments, is like watching a Pygmy smackdown over the relative size of their dicks. Sure, one of you has the biggest, but does 4″ really count?
Grow up.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
ernst & young partner Said:
October 24th, 2008 at 5:16 am
“accounting firms are going to take over”
There are a lot of arguments on this site (e.g. bankers vs. consultants, bulge vs. boutique etc.), but I think we can all unite and come to the conclusion that this guy is a moron. Please refer to the job posting below:
Company: Ernst & Young
Position: Partner (M&A Group)
Education Requirements: College Degree (4 year preferred but Community College applicants will be considered)
Experience: 1-2 years of trying to get a real M&A job. Those that have made a pathetic and futile attempt to enter the buy-side will be considered.
Responsibilities:
-Assist in compiling bullsh*t industry reports no one outside the firm will read
-Perform “no value-added” secondary diligence on financial documents created by individuals far superior to yourself (e.g. bankers, lawyers, etc.)
-Perform various other tasks to annoy those more intelligent than you and slow down the deal process
P.S Enjoy your 5 years at E&Y so you can end up ripping through financial statements at a lower-middle market PE firm in Montana.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
2 words for all IB’s/PE’s or whatever you dorks are - passive income. You guys are all so stupid working so hard to clear what, 400K/yr (if you’re lucky) and still the partner’s bitch, or an investor’s bitch even after you become partner - you’re still the bitch. Seriously “google” passive income, grow a pair of balls, take real risk (ie risk your own money - if you actually have any in the bank, doubt many of you do given your expenses) apply this knowledge and buy a piece of property bigger than 700 SF when you hit 35.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Hey Still Employed,
It actually is supposed to be HEDGEmony, dipshit.
If you had either the refinement, wit, or top notch education of a financier, you would realize that it is a play on where I work (a hedge fund) and hegemony, a word which means the dominance of one state or group over its allies or neighbors. Like how we continue to dominate low rent filth like you?
Speaking of low rent filth, I sure gave your B&T girlfriend a bonus the other night.
October 25th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Passive income….is that like network marketing?….amway?
bitch
October 25th, 2008 at 11:20 am
No, passive income is building a small or midsize business, hiring a few minions to do the “real” work after the thing si up and running, start clearing seven figures after 3-4 years of hard work and some luck, live below your means for about 5 years, sell the business and drive the proceeds into income producing assets. Seriously guys, Berkshire Hathaway was a T-Shirt shop in the 60’s - think about THAT. I’m trying to help you here.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
In response to your epilogue:
Bankers make it happen, not banks. Goldman, Lehman, Merrill, Morgan Stanley are just names - brands, legal structures, paper companies. They aren’t ‘Titans’, they’re HoldCos for Titans - bankers. And bankers arent going anywhere.
As long as there are businesses in this world, there will always be people needed to buy, sell & fund them - and those people will always make piles of money doing it. Always. If you’re buying or selling a business or raising billions of dollars of capital, you’ll always pay the guy who can get you the best deal. You’ll always happily give a banker a few million when he can get you a higher multiple on the sale of your business, or save you tens of millions through cap structuring. It’s the ultimate commision business - a higher form of real estate brokering, car sales, art dealing, sports agency - and the smartest, most useful, most cunning bastards will always be there to take their slices.
Euligizing the end of an era and lamenting the loss of Bear and Lehman is embarassing. Bear wasn’t even a top-ten bank. When it died it was barely top 20 in M+A. Lehman was a new kid on the block. Ten years back, they were nowhere and that’s where they returned.
Merrill didn’t die, it got married. Maybe close, but importantly different. It’s an equity and M&A shop that linked up with a pretty decent balance sheet debt house + lev fin bank (based in NYC by the way, only its parent + retail bank are hq’d in Charlotte). BofA surely knows its i-bank branding sucks. I’d bet they keep the Merrill name for that side of the business - the ML oligarch has already taken over. And they’ll probably be #1 or #2 on the street - I really don’t care. Prestige is in the deals and the bonuses. The new world order top 5 is likely to be: GS, the NewCo Merrill, JP, MS, and Laz, in that order, and I guarantee nobody who’s been around the block in banking will be mindful of the brands and legacy prestige stigmas in the future anymore than they have in the past.
You can remember the ‘Titans’ as a couple dead B-squad banks and slightly revised legal structures. I’ll keep knowing them as colleagues. Don’t stop writing your blog, its classic. Or throw in the towel and go consult me up a pie chart or two, bitch. Up to you. But don’t say the ship’s going down when it’s just in irons, checking the compass.
Redpen
October 25th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
haha, still employed made a fool out of himself…anyone with half a brain could have identified the pun in ‘hedgemony’. i presume, ‘hedgemony’ has considered ‘hedgemoney’ as a play on words for both ends but he was afraid idiots like you wouldn’t catch onto that…
on another note, as a wall street denizen myself, i have been a bit irritated by the sheer arrogance of some folks and am somewhat glad to see some ‘refinement’ in the banking culture through weeding out the materialistic few…pay less attention to ‘things’ and focus more on ‘ideas’
October 25th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
awesome post there redpen
you have kept my faith in ibs
i will continue to word hard towards that goal
October 25th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I am making enough money trading this year that I can retire and buy an island somewhere. Who is REALLY the baller here? Anyone who has slaved away as an investment banker missed the single easiest opportunity to amass wealth that anyone under the age of 50 has ever seen and may ever see again. I want to personally thank the clowns who kept the VIX at 20 for far to long and the a-holes who inflated stocks like RTP to absurd levels. While my buddies and I sometimes feel sorry that we are prospering at the expense of overpaid moron bankers (or even worse the simpletons throughout our great country who have never seen a trading floor) I won’t lose any sleep over it. The best part is that whether Wall St ever recovers or not, I will have made so much money this year that It really shouldn’t matter. I guess long short volatility fund managers will have the last laugh in the end. Thanks for the ride guys!
October 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
but honestly, is i-banking “dead?” i mean, like most of you are saying, we will need bankers to finance deals now and going forward! sure its slow now, but things will HAVE to pick up…. just wondering whether it makes sense to go to b-school now when everyone is being layed off and probably going there, or whether law school :-0 (i know….) should be my only saving grace at the moment… (i still have a job in banking)
October 25th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
amen brother. Amen
October 25th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Lazard in the house, sons! Best place to work right now.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
No, investment banking is not dead.
It’s on life support, still getting purged of the infection of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and starry eyed kids out of college who don’t even really like finance but think putting in their two years as an analyst will somehow benefit them.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
lazard, nice. are you accepting resumes lol
October 26th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Even I would work for LAZ if it is the right group. Not a bad shop.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I have heard that Wachovia built a strong brand in the investment banking business and took lots of market share from the traditional I-Banks in recent years. A friend of mine says that Wells Fargo may keep WB’s entire I-Bank (since their sucks), so if that happens I would think that the new I-Bank would be at least top 3 given their strong balance sheet (WFC). Thoughts?? Would this be a good place to work??
October 26th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
GS guy you’re a fuckin pussy.
Boutiques are for women. If you need a large balance sheet to make up for your small penis, get out of the industry. The only thing I’m scared of during these times is not having enough time to fuck all the chicks that wanna smash
October 26th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Wow. Still Employed: your comment made me laugh out loud.
With regards to you, LSO: perhaps you should take this moment of profound sadness and reflection to pen a book of poetry. I’m hankering to read some poignant crisis haikus.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
to unimpressed female:
How about you get back to the back office and wait on your knees for that BJ i promised id let you give me.
October 27th, 2008 at 5:46 am
…was this a eulogy or what? Come one, just because we’re de-leveraging does not mean we can’t do bottles! Live’n up, there’s better things to come, the era is past, but ‘THE’ era is coming!
October 27th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Redpen,
I’m not sure I agree with your statement:
“As long as there are businesses in this world, there will always be people needed to buy, sell & fund them - and those people will always make piles of money doing it.”
Yes, there will always be a need to buy/sell/fund companies. But why do you assume that people who provide these services will always make tons of money? I’m not talking short-term - IMHO this crisis is temporary. However, in the long run, there will be more and more experts in this area, methods of raising money will be well-documented and standardized. This will lead to narrowing to spreads and the profits of investment banks will be smaller.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:40 am
BofA’s IB, S&T, and research are all based in NYC.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:00 am
To Vol Trader:
Like many hedge funds that employ one or two strategies and don’t realize when the investing environment changes, you will lose a fortune when volatility declines. Just watch.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Why were you hanging out with some douchebag consultant? Is this article made up?
October 27th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Its just a cleansing of the non-hitters soaked up in a Bull market, be gone with you
October 27th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
What the hell kind of a firm is RBC? What kind of M&A do you do? Big Jim’s snow plowing business buys out Bob’s garden supply to create less-cyclical business? I’ll give you a call when we need a 1% co-manager to fill the “retard” portion of our minority-owned business quota.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
You are marginally better than RBC, since Kangaroo-farm M&A I suppose is better than general garden supply shop M&A.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
To RBC/unimpressed female, you actually meant to say “less seasonal” rather than “less-cyclical”. Get back on your soon-to-be laid off ECM knees.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I think you’re confusing the word elitist with snobbery, but that’s okay. The arugment still makes sense.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Not fair - don’t stop posting. This is when we need you the most.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Dear LSO,
I read your book and it was highly enjoyable. I find it funny that you write “eat shit everyone, us bankers rock and are better than you”…. and all of sudden the banker’s are now “eating shit”….
I guess it’s karma,… think about it
October 28th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Haha, hilarious end of the post.
But seriously, it’s about time for the charade of this entire financial system to finally end. Down with elitism and classism.
October 29th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Great article. True to the point.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I work in finance “in industry”. Am I still employed? Yes. Do I have something to brag about? No. I know this because I spend 50% of my time meeting with our bankers. They come here, Gucci loafers, $100 bills stuff in their pockets. I pale in comarison to their bespoke suits. I make $60k a year total…2 years out of college. Bankers will always own me and take my money. Now, I must get back to saving up for that flat screen I want.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I WISH I were a banker, even in this environment.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
To Vol Trader, would be curious to talk shop if you’re interested anytime
October 29th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Wow.. that really was incredible.
This was your Opus
October 29th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Let the posts continue… what will I do with my downtime?!
October 30th, 2008 at 1:10 am
LSO, this sure as hell better not be the end. Best days are ahead.
October 30th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I work in a Big 4 accounting firm doing due dilligence…do you think I’ll be able to land a gig as an IB associate at GS or MS these days (I have 3 years of experience and a CPA)? Or should I apply to HBS for my MBA?
October 30th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
What is ironic here is that the elitist Wall Street society was toppled by the poor (the Subprime borrowers/mortgages). Can we really trust the poor and the have nots? See what happens when you stuff the pockets of the lower tier society with home equity and easy financing. Elitism works….
October 30th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Former Solomon Brothers in the house…thanks for the good times. Still hitting 27th street like its summer 2006. Stay up and never forget your Excel 2004 shortcuts, we will be back on top sooner than you think. Everyone loves to hate the best, and that’s what we are…straight M&A all day homie!
October 30th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Options?, what the hell makes you think you can do IB if you’ve been doing due diligence but can’t even correctly spell “diligence”, you ass.
Maybe you could do IR at some ten dollar AUM hedge fund
Fucking loser
October 31st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Options?,
You have no chance without a CFA. CPA/CFA has a fighting chance but it would be better if you came fresh out of MBA.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
HEDGEmony,
Just because Mr. Patel used to smack you on the head with a wooden ruler so that you could learn how to spell “worthless” is no reason to make fun of one’s occasional spelling gaffes.
Sure, your superb spelling skills got you an adequate TOEFL score, allowing you to leave your stinkin’ mud hut in Calcutta and arrive in America to enrol in the Devry Community Business Diploma program. Way to go, douche.
I bet your attention to detail comes in very handy when calculating the rapidly-shrinking NAV of your bankrupt and defunct fund. Get back to the cage and start processing trade tickets, bitch.
November 1st, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Dear LSO,
Can you please write an article on how you perceive Big 4 Accounting firms (audit, tax, and advisory) specifics
Thanks
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
State Street in the house, SON!
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
What about becoming a doctor, engineer, lawyer, architect or dentist?
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Cute Cam’ron quote douchebag
November 4th, 2008 at 3:28 am
“What about becoming a doctor, engineer, lawyer, architect or dentist? ”
But none of those occupations start with B.
B is for baller and banker, great alliteration, and those two words are indefinitely interchangeable.
Baller…. Lawyer? No, just no.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:55 am
My bonus is bigger than yours and it will always be as long as you’re an accountant and I’m ruling the world bwuuuuhahahahaaaaa!!!
November 4th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Options?, you really are a lower breed (an accountant). Chances are, Hedgemony is probably white, but by delivering a worthless tirade about how he is indian is really somewhat demeaning to you since clearly some guy who can score adequately on his TOEFL is making more money than your ass. And don’t worry about getting into HBS b/c that won’t happen to you a) you will likely score lower on your GMAT than some guy from Calcutta b) you’re an accountant which means you either went to some shitty state school or couldn’t find a banking job out of NYU and c) you’re an idiot. Get back to counting inventory in Iowa.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
College Junior,
Don’t go work for Wells Fargo unless you have to. The idea that Wachovia was taking share away from traditional iBanks is a lie. What big M&A project or refinancing deal have you heard of coming out of Wachovia? Most people are ill conceived in the notion that wealth management = investment banking. Wealth managers = retards from 2nd rate business school. Anyone can tell you hwo to allocate a portfolio into stock, bonds and cash for retirement. If you want to be the real deal, go work for MS or GS, or even BAC (now that they are going to own Merrill), and go do either product or industry coverage in ibanking, though you may want to stay away from M&A. You can even go work in PE if it tickles your fancy, there are plenty of top tier ones, Lazard, Citadel, BSX, Cerberus, KKR, etc.
Btw, accounting is like consulting for retards. That is saying something since consultants themselves aren’t the brightest… All you do is pour over financial statements and don’t actually make any intelligent observations. I’m pretty sure I could train a monkey to do this. The E&Y job post is really funny, and it’s supposed to be a top tier, Big 4 accounting firm?
“Education Requirements: College Degree (4 year preferred but Community College applicants will be considered)”
Are you serious? Try going to a IB or S&T interview at a respectable top tier PE or IBank firm with a community college degree or even a four year degree from some shitty state school and I promise you will get laughed out of the interview room.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Wharton…please, coming out of wharton i would expect you to know the difference between HF, PE and Ibank. Lazard is an Ibank. KKR, Cerberus, and Blackstone (BX not BSX) are PE and Citadel is a HF. Get your shit straight. Are you sure you didn’t get your degree from the liberal arts side of Penn?
November 5th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
buyside dan -
depends on your definitions.
most would consider citadel a hf, but it does have a pe strategy.
lazard has lazard asset mgmt which is their $100b fund, with both hf and pe components.
blackstone has a multi-strat hedge fund that’s about 3 years old.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
To categorize all of the above as merely “PE” is just bad