When Leo Lukenas, a Bank of America associate, died of heart complications earlier this year, it was initially rumoured that he'd worked multiple 120-hour weeks. And yet, Bank of America said its own records of Lukenas' working hours didn't indicate this. After speaking to various other juniors at Bank of America, the Wall Street Journal suggests why this might be: as hours become excessive, juniors are encouraged not to log them.
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Long working hours aren't particular to Bank of America, but Bank of America is under scrutiny following Lukenas' death. The WSJ spoke to one current associate at BofA who said HR intervened after he worked over 100 hour weeks for a month. The associate was given a day off and planned to go for a long bike ride, but his boss called and asked him to work without logging it. The WSJ also spoke to members of the leveraged finance group, who said their team has been overburdened after lay-offs last year and that they've been asked to stop logging hours when they work into the night to escape scrutiny from HR.
It's called "working off the books." In total, the WSJ says it spoke to nearly 40 people who are either former or current employees of BofA, at all levels of seniority, who said it's become common practice. Bank of America isn't alone in this, either: a junior at another bank in Paris said they were instructed to change the times on the clocks on their laptops to defy attempts to monitor working hours.
It means that the bank's attempts to monitor overworking juniors probably aren't working. A spokesperson for Bank of America told the Wall Street Journal: "our practices are clear, and we expect all employees including managers to follow them. When we’ve learned of violations, disciplinary actions have been taken.”
With many juniors working 100-hour weeks, some are snatching sleep wherever they can find it. One said it's not unusual for young bankers to sleep in bathroom stalls (toilets) or conference rooms.
Despite this, Bank of America's jobs are hugely oversubscribed and few juniors there leave. The bank has had 400,000 applications for its entry level positions in five years and turnover at associate level is only 10%.
Separately, after Goldman Sachs dropped the EU bonus cap and promised to pay up to 25X salaries as bonuses and after Barclays and JPMorgan did the same, promising to pay up to 10x, Citi is lifting the bonus cap too.
The Sunday Times reported yesterday that Citi plans to relax the bonus cap, but didn't elaborate on the new limit or when it might happen. To some extent, it's merely stating the obvious: all US banks are likely to lift the bonus cap in London this year; it's just a question of when. Morgan Stanley has scrapped the cap too; its intentions are equally vague.
Meanwhile...
Goldman Sachs' chief information officer Marco Argenti, says his typical day involves, "a bunch of meetings, one after the other," and that he's trying to make them more productive by encouraging people to read at the start of them. He also said AI is only making Goldman developers 20% more productive on average and that it can't be applied to Slang (yet). (Bloomberg)
Gen AI is like an intern. You give them a task, they go off, come back all excited, and create something that looks really good. It’s structured, thoughtful, and well organized, but it could be totally wrong. (McKinsey)
Berenberg hired its fifth person from Peel Hunt: Carl Goughfor real estate finance. (Financial News)
Jupiter relaxed its hybrid working rules during August. (Financial News)
Evercore hired David Kamo, Goldman partner and global co-head of financial-sponsor mergers and acquisitions. (Bloomberg)
“Creditor on creditor violence”is a thing as creditors compete to get money back from distressed debt deals. Oaktree Capital Management, Pimco,Sona Asset Management,King Street CapitalandBeach Point Capitalhave all got "capital solutions strategies" to benefit from this. (Bloomberg)
Apollo boss Marc Rowan has upset locals by buying a modest lobster shack in the Hamptons and upscaling it. “My perception is that he actually believes he has elevated Montauk.”(Financial Times)
Studyholism is characterized by persistent and recurrent problematic studying behaviors leading to clinically significant impairment or distress (including health-related problems) as revealed by the student displaying, for a minimum of 6 months, study-related obsessions and/or study-related compulsions. (MDPI)
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