Deutsche Bank’s senior M&A bankers are gnashing their teeth and hurling their lucite tombstones this morning: they have been overlooked for promotion. Instead of plucking one of its finest M&A bankers and making him (or her) into a head of M&A for EMEA, Deutsche Bank has gone and hired someone from JPMorgan.
Financial News reports that Deutsche has hired in Karl-Georg Altenburg, formerly the senior country officer for Germany, Austria and Switzerland at JPMorgan, to be co-head corporate finance in EMEA alongside Deutsche’s own homegrown Miles Millard. Altenburg isn’t even a dyed-in-the wool M&A banker: he spent a long time working in debt capital markets. Nor has he ever shown an interest in large German banks in the past – his entire 20 year career has been spent at JPMorgan.
Grumpy Deutsche Bank dealmakers can always quit the bank and set themselves up in a small rented office somewhere in London’s West End. This effectively appears to be the route taken by Paul Taubman, the veteran Morgan Stanley M&A banker who left the U.S. bank after being overlooked for promotion in 2012. 53 year-old Taubman, whom the Financial Times reports now operates from a small office in a New York law firm, has won a role as a lead advisor on Comcast’s $45bn takeover of Time Warner Cable. Since spinning out, he’s also worked on Verizon’s $130bn takeover of its wireless joint venture with Vodafone. If you’re that good in M&A, you don’t need a Deutsche Bank or Morgan Stanley behind you. Nor do you need the lucite.
Meanwhile:
New research boutique Lazarus Partnership has been hiring. (Financial News)
Fidelity wants to attract more female clients, notes that women are often “out-earning their spouses.” (Financial Times)
The real titans of finance are now in private equity. Goldman’s return on equity was 11% last year, for example. KKR’s was 27.4%. (Financial Times)
“It’s going to be a long time before most people in the world are in love with bankers,” says Lloyd Blankfein. (Telegraph)
The beauty of mathematics. (Vimeo)
Retired ‘financier’ tries to get neighbour certified as insane in order to seize a 12 inch strip of land. (Daily Express)
Why do you never hear back after an interview in an investment bank? (Mergers and Inquisitions)