Morning Coffee: Married senior banker in alleged affair seen kissing colleague upon exiting elevator. Barclays' hedge fund champion returns to buy-side

If you're having a secret affair with a colleague while married, it probably makes to stand on opposite sides of an elevator and to avoid eye contact. It is also inadvisable to exchange romantic poetry on the office system, or to have a memento of a night out encased in plexiglass like a deal toy and placed in your office.  

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After both ex-RBC CFO Nadine Ahn and former RBC VP-in-the-treasury-team Ken Mason denied having an affair and sued their former employer for firing them on the grounds of the alleged secret relationship, RBC has hit back with its reasons for supposing that Ahn and Mason were more than colleagues and more than friends. 

Bloomberg reports that RBC's latest filing details how a whistleblower saw the two “hugging and kissing and exiting the elevators” in a hotel proximate to RBC's office. RBC then investigated and discovered messages saying, "I love you," and "I love you too,” the swapping of romantic poetry, pet names (“Prickly Pear” for Ahn and the inexplicable "KD" for Mason), and "liquidity meetings" involve cocktails.

Most damningly, RBC claims to have discovered a filed owned by Mason titled "Project Ken" on attempts to orchestrate promotions and pay rises for the alleged lover. When another employee questioned Mason's pay rise, Ahn is alleged to have terminated that person without cause. 

It's not clear where this leaves Ahn and Mason's marriages, or their attempts to sue RBC for $49m and $20m respectively. Both will presumably provide more evidence to the effect that their affection was platonic. If they fail to do so, they stand to be considerably worse off: RBC wants to claw back Ahn's bonuses and Mason's excess pay, plus costs. 

Separately, for all the moves from hedge funds back to banking, there are some who are still willing to tread the fiery path. 

They include Michael Lubinsky, who arrived at Barclays from Brevan Howard to lead macro trading in 2017. After six years in that role, Lubinsky left in June 2024. It turns out he's going back to Brevan Howard.

Lubinsky's return comes at an interesting time for macro traders. Brevan Howard's master fund was down 2.4% between January and early June. However, Bloomberg reported that the fund swung to a profit after the volatility of early August. 

Meanwhile...

Goldman Sachs' London private wealth team was shocked when a 33-year-old colleague was jailed for two years for sexually abusing a relative between the ages of 13 and 17. Goldman said he concealed the court proceedings from them. (Financial Times)

Goldman Sachs will probably lead Klarna's circa $20bn IPO next year. (Bloomberg) 

Revolut wants to float on the Nasdaq instead of in London. The British government is trying to persuade it otherwise. (Financial Times) 

Goldman Sachs has 46,000 employees. 10,000 of them are engineers. (Business Insider) 

It's still not easy to work for Ray Dalio. Mark Baumgartner has departed his role as chief investment officer for the Dalio Family Office after less than a year. (Institutional Investor) 

HSBC hired Aladdin Hangari from Credit Suisse to build its wealth business in the Middle East, but it's not going well. People keep leaving. “Staff turnover is natural and we’re not seeing anything out of the ordinary,” says HSBC. (Bloomberg) 

Citadel can't move into its new Park Avenue tower until 2030 so it's trying to lease space on 5th Avenue in the meantime. (Business Insider) 

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