There may not be much junior banker hiring happening now, but if you're a talented senior banker unhappy in your seat after being somehow wronged, a US bank might take you in.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

The latest to discover this is Theo Giatrakos, a financial sponsors banker at Citi in London. Giatrakos devoted 20% of his life to Citi and was crowned head of the bank's alternative assets group for EMEA in 2021. Late last year, though, Giatrakos was shunted out of that role by Sid Punshi, the former co-head of the financial sponsors group for EMEA at JPMorgan. Punshi plopped into Giatrakos' job and Giatrakos was commanded to go thither for Citi, dedicating time to "client relationships" and 'driving initiatives' across the business there instead. 

Nine months later, Bloomberg reports that Giatrakos has in fact driven himself to JPMorgan's financial sponsors group. Presumably, he'll be joining Punshi's old team as an MD there. It's not quite the same as being the team head, but at least he won't be working under the man who took his job. 

Giatrakos isn't the only displaced Citi banker to move on. Anthony Diamandakis, the longstanding head of the bank's global asset managers team left in March after Citi found him an unexpected new co-head in the form of Ashu Khullar, a corporate banker from Citi in India. Paul Abrahimzadeh and Russell Chong, the co-heads of Citi's North American ECM business, left in February, seemingly hastened by the fact that ex-JPMorgan banker Achintya Mangla is now running Citi's entire capital markets business. 

Citi's exits follow the arrival of Vis Raghavan, the former head of global investment banking at JPMorgan. Raghavan, who can be "abrasive" has his admirers, but isn't universally liked. He's often accused of promoting former colleagues and countrymen. This may be unfair - Raghavan might simply be seen as engineering the exits of expensive Citi bankers whose severance would be expensive if they were paid to leave. However, he needs to be careful not to upset too many incumbents at Citi: last month Tommaso Ponsele left Citi for Goldman Sachs, and Citi wanted him to stay. 

Separately, if you're looking for a shady place to sit out the next financial burnout, Jamie Dimon is touting JPMorgan as it. 

As the US budget deficit risks ballooning from $36 trillion to a potential $38.6 trillion (over a decade) following Trump's new tax legislation, Dimon has been warning of the potential for a crisis in the treasury markets "in six months or six years," at which point he says regulators will panic.

When this happens, Dimon says JPMorgan will be ok. - "I’m not going to panic, we’ll be fine. We’ll probably make more money and then some of my friends will tell me that we like crises because it’s good for JPMorgan Chase — not really.” 

Scott Bessent says to politely ignore Jamie Dimon. “I’ve known Jamie for a long time, and for his entire career he’s made predictions like this. Fortunately none of them have come true. That’s why he’s a great banker. He tries to look around the corner.” (Bloomberg) 

HSBC laid off 40 employees last week after disbanding its business banking division in the US. (WSJ) 

Nomura wants to grow in America. (Bloomberg) 

Alexander Chreky came to London in 2021 to study international development and stayed to work as a commodity analyst in the City. He planned to settle and become a UK citizen. Now that the government is increasing the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to 10 years, he's having second thoughts. (Financial Times) 

Paul Thwaite, the current CEO of Natwest, found out about the collapse of RBS during the 2008 financial crisis on the 7am news. He was a middle manager at the bank at the time. He called his parents and a mentor and decided to stay to put things right. This year he will earn up to £7.8m. (Financial Times) 

It's a bad time to work in private equity. Universities want an 8% return over time from their PE and hedge fund holdings. Trump wants them to place more cash in passive index funds. Harvard, Princeton and Yale are all looking at selling PE stakes. (NY Post) 

Private equity's hang over was partly caused by the 2020-22 period, when valuations were booming and interest rates were near zero. Private equity groups attempted to sell their pre-2020 purchases into this market and then paid huge prices for new deals, anticipating that rates would stay low. (Financial Times) 

When you interview superstar talent, you mustn't talk about competencies but evaluate culture fit and sell them on the opportunity. The conversation becomes about mission alignment, role definition, and why your company will win. (The Generalist) 

A university in China is advertising for a canteen manager with a doctoral degree. (SCMP) 

Every banking intern season is different, says Richard Handler at Jefferies. "Three summers ago, the financing environment was defined by nonstop action throughout the capital markets, which created a “fire hose” of experience and learning opportunities. Two summers ago, the volatility made it challenging, if not impossible, for decent capital formation...This summer, the early indications are that the markets will be open, there is enormous pent-up demand for capital formation and deal flow, but there is a lot of volatility and uncertainty driven by tariffs, geopolitics, the budget and interest rates." (Jefferies) 

You are nothing without the biggest yacht. “You have a driver, and I have a driver. You can fly privately, and I fly privately. So, the one place where I can make clear to the world that I am in a different f---ing category than you is the boat.” (Bloomberg) 

 , or email [email protected]. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libellous (in which case it won’t.)