If you’re looking for work as a bond-focused fund manager and you don’t want to risk your chances with cat-happy Bill Gross over at Pimco, why not try Blackrock? Bloomberg reports that the fund management firm has just hired Barry Knapp from Barclays to oversee a new strategies team for its active bond unit. Knapp, who will join Blackrock later this year, will reportedly build a thematic strategies team focused on identifying major structural themes and their related investment opportunities.
Knapp’s long experience (he used to work for Lehman Brothers and has worked for Merrill Lynch and Fidelity Investments) is seen as a boon in an environment where interest rates are expected to rise and fund managers under 30 have no adult experience of a rising-rate environment. Other bond old-timers may want to knock on Knapp’s door soon.
Separately, Bloomberg reports that Deutsche Bank has been commanded to give the Frankfurt-based Euribor traders it was obliged to reinstate in November precisely the same jobs they had before. The traders were dismissed by Deutsche in February 2013 for the suspected manipulation of Euribor rates, but the German bank was ordered to reinstate them by German courts nine months later. During the court proceedings in November, it emerged that that Deutsche had paid the two MD-level rates traders bonuses of €2.7m and €780k, while two more junior traders received bonuses of €200k and €180k. The MDs and juniors also received salaries of €264k a year and €130k a year respectively.
Despite re-employing the four men, it seems Deutsche didn’t give them precisely the same positions that they held prior to their allegedly wrongful dismissal. The German bank is contesting the court’s decision, but has now been obliged to give the men their exact jobs back while the appeals process continues.
Meanwhile:
These are the hedge fund strategies that are doing well this year, according to Goldman Sachs, (Twitter)
Crispin Odey has hired Simon Schafer, a former tech analyst from Goldman Sachs. (Financial News)
Mysterious 52 year old hedge fund manager takes big pay cut and becomes FT journalist. (Financial Times)
UBS has hired 88 wealth advisors in Hong Kong and says it wants to hire more. (Bloomberg)
Barclays is moving back office staff from the Singaporean suburbs into the city as part of a cost cutting drive. (Bloomberg)
Bob Diamond has poached John Vitalo, Barclays’ head of the Middle East and north Africa, as chief executive, to run his new venture – Atlas Mara. (Financial Times)
Joshua Critchley, an ex-Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch banker, has been made sole head of capital markets at RBC in Europe. (Financial News)
Bank of America is closing its technology and operations sites in Taguig City, Philippines; Guadalajara, Mexico; and San Jose, Costa Rica. 3,000 jobs will go as a result. (MarketWatch)
“We want the U.K. to stay in Europe,” says 48-year-old Michael Sherwood of Goldman Sachs. “The U.K. leaving the EU would lead to some sort of fragmentation of our business. The City would definitely be impacted.” (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs is thinking of closing its dark pool, Sigma X. (Wall Street Journal)
Banker turns politician on tax-the-rich ticket: “For the first time since I stopped wanting to be an astronaut, I saw something I wanted to do more than banking.” (Bloomberg)
Hipsters are heavily indebted. Shoreditch/Finsbury postcode has the 2nd highest level of personal debt in the UK. (BBA)
GS Elevator was outed by ex-girlfriend. (New York Observer)
A clever answer to an ethically challenging question in a job interview. (HCA)
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The post Morning Coffee: How to get a bond strategy job at Blackrock. Deutsche Bank ordered to reinstate £3m rates trader in exactly same role appeared first on eFinancialCareers.