Tyler Dicksonuntil recently head of investment banking at Citi, left. He will lead “client relations” for Blackstone’s credit and insurance unit, reporting to Gilles Delaert.
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On one level, this is probably one of the most predictable job moves in recent banking history. Since various big hires were outsourced, there have been widespread reports of discontent among Citi insiders. Including those rentals Vis Raghavanwho recently arrived from JPMorgan to be head of banking.
In any reorganization, it is always highly unlikely that the best internal candidate for the position will remain after being let go. It’s debatable whether or not Dickson deserved a chance, whether the perceived underperformance of the Citi franchise was real or just bad luck. But the decision has clearly been made, and once Jane Fraser has made it, it’s probably best that all parties accept the reality.
Dickson’s new seat may even be better than his last. Blackstone currently has a market capitalization 15% higher than Citigroup. And if you compare quarterly results on a like-for-like basis, the company’s “distributable earnings.” Credit and Insurance Group at Blackstone, which Dickson joins, is a constant $300 million, plus or minus, while the entire Banking the Citi segment ranged between a $500 million profit and a $300 million loss.
So while Dickson’s job at Blackstone is a newly created role that doesn’t appear to have direct management responsibilities, it’s by no means a consolation prize. It was a big enough thing to deserve it Press Release from the new employer and the line of business into which it is moving is at least as economically significant as an investment bank with a bulging bracket.
Vis Raghavan is likely to see Dickson’s departure as a necessary step, but he would be well-advised not to celebrate too soon or publicly. Many other top Citi bankers are likely to be in a similar position to Tyler Dickson. For them, too, the idea of ​​moving into “client relations”—that is, building relationships and closing deals—might seem far more appealing than being a head of a business unit at a bank with all the trappings, staff, and operations. the responsibilities that go with it. One of the most difficult tasks in banking is to go through a change in management while keeping a franchise together;
Elsewhere latest workplace survey in the European Central Bank is absolutely alarming. On the standardized list of questions called “Oldenberg Burnout Inventory”, 39.8% of employees recorded answers corresponding to the imminent burnout syndrome. 72% of them said they had experienced psychosomatic symptoms including exhaustion and mood disorders, and 9% (up from 6% last year) said they thought they would be better off dead in the previous two weeks.
This is something that should worry everyone in the industry, not just the ECB’s top management. Banking supervision has the power to destroy people’s careers and significantly affect the viability of businesses. It is no good for anyone to have these functions performed by people who are in a permanent state of emergency. Regardless, this level of stress in the workplace tends to lead to high turnover and makes it impossible to build the kind of organizational memory and institutional knowledge you would hope to find in one of the most important financial institutions on the continent. economy. Things seem to have improved at least a little in the UK Financial Conduct Authority from the low point of morale a few years ago and we hope that the ECB will soon turn the corner as well.
Meantime…
An interesting development for the APAC market – Deutsche Bank has hired Victor Jiang, former head of investment banking in Southeast Asia and co-head of TMT at China International Capital Corp. The story in the Greater China region over the past twelve months has very much been one of the restrictions on big international names ceding market share to domestic players, so it is potentially significant to see some traffic in the opposite direction. (Bloomberg)
UBS also appears to be making a significant sector bet, with Javier Oficialdegui announcing at least eight MD-level hires to the TMT team, with bankers coming from Barclays, Moelis, Guggenheim, Lazard and Cowen. The “best of second best” strategy is still in place as the press release reiterates UBS’s ambition to be “the leading non-US player”. (Financial news)
Pagegroup, a UK recruitment firm, received a profit warning and said that the conversion of interviews to appointments had weakened drastically. The stock market seems to think many European peers are reading this. (Bloomberg)
“Baker to Baker”? YouTube cake influencer Amanda Axelrod is a quarter-finalist in the “Favorite Chef” national cooking competition. She used to he worked eight years at the Jacksonville branch of Deutsche Bank, where he ended up as an associate in their Credit Risk Workout & Recovery Management team. (Jacksonville Times-Union)
Is anyone really saying, “Do we double-click it?”. Some sell-side analysts seem to have started doing this at earnings and are being mocked accordingly. (WSJ)
Jim Leaviss gives some more details about his new life as an art historian. Having written extensively on the history of Weimar Germany’s bond market, he will now reflect on the same period as “the Bauhaus movement, Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin (think Cabaret), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and the paintings of Otto Dix. (Bond Vigilantes)
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