Morning Coffee: JPMorgan copies Citi's tactic for poaching its people. Mystery man tempts 25-year old rejected for banking internships

If you're at JPMorgan, you might feel like moving to Citi. And if you're at Citi, you might feel like moving to JPMorgan. Both banks have things to recommend them, not least the fact that you might receive a swift promotion during or after joining.

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As we noted in August, as Citi relentlessly hires from JPMorgan and reconvenes Vis Raghavan's troops, it has a tendency to promote people into bigger jobs. Now, JPMorgan is doing the same thing. 

JPMorgan has lost at least 10 bankers to Citi, but it's also hired at least four Citi bankers in return. One of JPMorgan's hires was Francisco ‘Cisco’ Abularach, who spent nearly 27 years at Citi, latterly as the global co-head of infrastructure banking. When Abularach initially joined JPMorgan in July, it was as the mere head of infrastructure banking for EMEA. But just two months after Abularach's arrival, Financial News reports that JPMorgan has now promoted him as global co-head of infrastructure and EMEA head simultaneously.

Citi, meanwhile, has offered bigger jobs to the likes of Aloke Gupte, who was JPMorgan's co-head of equity capital markets for EMEA and APAC, but who now runs all private and public capital markets there, and to Guillermo Baygual, who was the global co-head of the infrastructure and strategic investors group at JPMorgan, but is who now Citi's new co-head of all global M&A. 

Dangling a big promotion is a carrot to taking a new role. JPMorgan's elevation of Abularach - who joined the bank after a three-year intervening period at an infrastructure fund - shows that it's not averse to playing Citi's promotions game. The delay in appointing Abularach to the global co-head role at JPMorgan implies sensitivity: internal candidates don't always like it when outside hires get the best jobs.

Ironically, Abularach was appointed to his bigger job by Avery Whidden, the co-head of JPMorgan's Infrastructure & Strategic Investors Group, which he previously ran with Baygual who's now at Citi. It's a reminder that the two banks are increasingly blurred, and that moving between them has its advantages.

Separately, 25-year-old Florida Atlantic University finance graduate, Sam Rabinowitz had his hopes for achieving a finance job raised and then dashed by a mysterious man on Wall Street. 

The New York Post reports that after being unemployed for three years and applying for internships at Citi and JPMorgan without success, Rabinowitz took to parading Wall Street wearing a sandwich board saying, "Looking for a Finance/Trading Internship or Entry-Level Position. Dedicated. Hungry. Ready to Work.”

The tactic had the desired effect. An unnamed "partner at an IPO company" plucked Rabinowitz into a impressive office and showed him the screens, saying that someone once gave him a chance and Rabinowitz was a "great story."

However, that was two weeks ago, and since then Rabinowitz has heard nothing back. That might be because he made an Instagram video of his experience that's had 250,000 views. 

Meanwhile...

UBS might move its headquarters to America. (New York Post) 

The cost of refurbishing Citi's London office has risen to $1.5bn (Reuters) 

Dan Simkowitz, co-president of Morgan Stanley, says equities revenues are soaring because of "derivative-ization" as more professional investors are using derivatives more often to either protect themselves against losses or to turbocharge the bets they believe are winners. (Bloomberg) 

Lloyd Blankfein thinks a crash is coming. The US usually experiences a crisis every four to five years. "It usually revolves around leverage. And, in this time, now, probably credit — leverage in places that you don't see it." (Business Insider)  

Kerry Blum, who works within Goldman’s private wealth management business, says she's been using AI to brainstorm communicating on projects to staff. "Candidly I was having a bit of writer’s block . . . While I could have spent time iterating on the framing of the proposal on my own, I decided to brainstorm with the AI assistant.” (Financial Times) 

Eisler Capital and Squarepoint Capital have been hiring volatility traders. (Bloomberg) 

Bank of America appointed Dean Athanasia, its head of regional banking, and Jim DeMare, head of global markets, as group co-presidents. It also elevated chief financial officer Alastair Borthwick to executive vice-president. (Financial Times) 

JPMorgan wants corporate bankers in Asia. (Reuters) 

JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi, New York Stock Exchange, Charles Schwab and others are all expanding in Texas and calling it Y’all Street. (Business Insider) 

People are getting fired over Charlie Kirk posts. “When employees are asked to bring their whole self to work, they bring their whole self to work, including their strong opinions.” (Washington Post) 

Someone did a poo on the carpet during the summer party of a US law firm in London. (RollonFriday) 

Most complaints to employee whistleblowing lines are about colleagues with body odour and bad breath. (WSJ) 

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