Morning Coffee: JPMorgan's new office involved intense inputs from its top bankers. The finance job where you stop work at 3pm

Being asked to design the $3bn new office for JPMorgan at 270 Park Avenue sounds like an exciting sort of commission. Foster + Partners, the London architects behind the Gherkin, the Millennium Bridge and the Apple doughnut building, won it. The Wall Street Journal says the architects were gifted words like "Fortress" and "Ascendant" to inspire them. But JPMorgan's top bankers, who presumably produced these words during a session involving Trello boards, got to be the designers too.

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It's not unusual for senior bankers to take a strong interest in interiors, or to be married to interior designers (ask Andrea Orcel), but designing an ascendant office building isn't the same as positioning a pool. Nonetheless, the WSJ says JPMorgan's top people were 'intimately involved' and got a floor each to oversee. Doug Petno, the ever-affable, head of the investment bank, was given the ground floor and the lobby. Mary Erdoes, the hard-driving head of the wealth business, got the office floors and client spaces along with the unconventional Marianne Lake. Erdoes and Dan Pinto, who's leaving but seemingly still about, got the executive offices. 

It's not easy to design a building if you spend your time staring at spreadsheets, but the bankers were given some help with their real life ideation. To make things easier for them, the WSJ says a model of the lobby was built in a South Bronx warehouse and that Petno and others got to stroll around "in masks" while they decided where to put the escalators.   

The resultant lobby can be seen here. It has 50 foot-ceilings, a flag pole and an interstellar transit vibe. Upstairs was more problematic. The WSJ says the sky lobby, the most ascendant part of the building, unintentionally began to resemble a shopping mall and had to be rendered more 'professional.'

There are other niggles too. In its quest for ascendant ceilings and shared working spaces, the designers and the senior bankers may have neglected the actual work stations. The WSJ says people working at 270 Park Avenue are finding the conditions more cramped than at the less ascendant 383 Madison Avenue building. 

Separately, if you're looking for a financial services job at the cutting edge of credit markets, which pays well, but which doesn't require 100-hour working weeks, then how about asset allocation? 

HighYieldHarry has spoken to an asset allocation professional focused on credit, who seems to have a fine existence. He works remotely and each day, he checks his emails at 7am, logs in to work at 8.30am and stops work at 3.30pm-4pm. "The work-life balance is incredible," he declares. Some people in his team don't bother checking emails beyond mid-afternoon.

If this sounds like the job for you, asset allocation typically requires a CFA, an MBA, and a background in credit analysis in a bank. It involves broadly deciding which funds to invest in, and often simply means investing where big institutional investors have gone already. Unfortunately, the jobs aren't easy to come by and may be even hard to find in the future. Credit investing is not what it was, and the allocator says credit funds are already starting to make job cuts. Working until 5pm may be necessary, soon.

Meanwhile... 

Deutsche Bank says its loan book is fine. “There is no deterioration, we’re very confident with our credit portfolio.” (Bloomberg) 

Apollo and others are shorting the debt of Adler Pelzer Holding, a German autoparts manufacturer that they think is struggling. (Bloomberg) 

First Brands stopped communicating with the Jefferies bankers who were managing its $6bn financing deal on September 15th. This caused some annoyance. (WSJ)

Lotfi Karoui, Goldman's chief credit strategist, is leaving after 18 years. In one of his most recent notes, he said that sovereign fiscal risk - particularly in France- poses the most risk to the banking sector. (Bloomberg) 

Italy wants to increase the flat rate of tax paid by wealth expats from €200k to €300k. This might happen from January 2026. (Financial Times) 

After cutting its equities team earlier this year, Stifel is all about becoming a mid-market bank and that it's “constantly in hiring mode or lift out mode" and wants FIG bankers. (Financial News) 

Goldman Sachs is creating a banking team to focus on infrastructure financing globally, and data centres in particular. (WSJ) 

There is a wealth management hiring spree in Taiwan. UBS plans to grow client facing staff there by 10-15% next year; Standard Chartered tripled its Taiwan wealth specialists; HSBC is scaling its team and BNP wants 15 wealth managers in the next two years. (Bloomberg) 

Citadel Securities might go into India. (Bloomberg) 

James Fishback, a former analyst at David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital Inc., is having two exchange-traded funds liquidated by the trustees after he admitted to sharing information about his positions with friends and family. (Bloomberg) 

Two Sigma staff are accused of hiding assets from the co-founder's wife, who is divorcing him. (Bloomberg) 

Junior bankers in London have been attending sex parties despite being nerds. 'On the top floor stood a huge bed, ringed with whips, manacles and a pillory.' (Financial Times) 

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