Morning Coffee: The ex-Credit Suisse guy with big ambitions at Barclays. How top hedge fund managers make you feel small
Stephen Dainton had a good run at Credit Suisse. He worked for the bank for 14 years until July 2017, during which time he ran the equities business and survived rounds of cuts before finally succumbing to semi-mandatory departure in 2017 following a large loss in the bank's equities division. If you're leaving Credit Suisse, Dainton has been there: he knows what it's like.
Following that semi-ignominious episode, though, Dainton is doing better than ever. He's now co-head of the global markets business at Barclays and since February has run Barclays' equities business too. Even better, he has a history of hiring from Credit Suisse and is known for being an unusually pleasant person. If you're at Credit Suisse and are feeling twitchy about the future, Dainton should probably be your first port of call.
He sounds pretty approachable. "I am here to help any CS employees to the extent that I can, so please do contact me directly because it was a phenomenal place to work," Dainton declared on LinkedIn last week.
Dainton makes Barclays sound like a good life raft for Credit Suisse flounderers. Speaking to the IFR, Dainton said it's a safe haven in the banking storm: “We exhibit most closely to a US bank in terms of being geographically diverse and operating business diverse. The main difference is we’re not tied to a US housing cycle like they are." Barclays is growing and its macro trading focus mean it's well-placed to benefit from volatility around increased rates, said Dainton: the bank's "revenue wallet" has expanded.
The only slight issue for anyone leaving Credit Suisse with aspirations to join Barclays is that Dainton's new home is more likely to spend its money on technology than on people. IFR reports that Barclays' headcount in global markets has only increased very slightly since 2017, while the amount it spends on technology has risen 40%. This trend is likely to continue. - Dainton says he wants “de-manualise” a bit more, particularly in fixed income trading.
Separately, if you happen to come across hedge fund manager Steven Cohen, and it's not in the context of baseball, beware being belittled. While Cohen is a transformed character once he hits the baseball milieu (he owns NY Mets), the New York Times reflects that he's not always an easy boss in his day job. There, Cohen can reportedly be "savage," demanding of his traders, “That’s your best idea?” and “Are you stupid?” Even at the Mets, where Cohen is far more sensitive to the way he communicates, the NYT says he has a certain way of speaking. - 'He often begins sentences with “listen” and ends them with “right?” — a tic that conveys his wishes clearly: Hear him out and kindly agree with him.'
Meanwhile...
Boutique investment bank William Blair has pushed back start dates for incoming first-year analysts to the fall from summer. (Business Insider)
Binance allegedly encouraged customers to use VPNs to hide their locations. (Bloomberg)
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao controls even the most minute spending decisions at the exchange, down to $60 items. (Twitter)
Andrew Truscott, Citi's head of UK investment banking, is standing down to become chief executive officer of John Laing Group, the infrastructure investor owned by private equity firm KKR & Co. It's also a client. (Financial News)
Vanguard is opening a new office in Manchester. (Bloomberg)
Nomura won't be hiring a lot of people from Credit Suisse, although it might like a few wealth managers. “We’re not going to suddenly hire, you know, 30 people because they happen to become available out of a one-off event.” (Bloomberg)
UBS's Ralph Hamers says he has no intention of simply closing Credit Suisse. "While we did not seek this transaction, we were prepared, and we see it as an opportunity to accelerate our firm’s growth story. We did not buy Credit Suisse only to close it." (Reuters)
When UBS finalises its purchase of Credit Suisse its tangible book value per share will rise by 74%, Based on UBS’s valuation before the deal, its share price now ought to be almost 30 francs rather than Friday’s 17.26 francs. UBS is likely to get rid of a lot of Credit Suisse's fixed income trading business but might be interested in leveraged finance. (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs is looking at using Chat GPT to summarize and extract data from documents, to create code documentation, and to help non-engineers use coding tools. (Business Insider)
Jason Auerbach, global co-head of investment banking at SVB Securities, is joining Moelis & Co. (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs won't be getting a third company jet after all. (Business Insider)
This isn’t like a 2008, where you have toxic credit risk spread throughout the system and it’s not clear how bad it is or where it is. This isn’t a run on the business model of massive banks that no one could possibly buy or put into wind-down. This is the yield curve....In 2023, cutting rates 300 basis points would take all these held-to-maturity securities back to par and recapitalize the whole banking system. (Without Warning)
Commerbank has added the risk of a nuclear attack on Frankfurt to the list of risks that may afflict its business in its annual report. (Twitter)
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