Wall Street: BofA's audio leak
Good morning! I'm Aaron Weinman, and I'm writing this from our offices in Downtown Manhattan. For those BofA bankers reading this, I'm going to assume you're nestled into your seats at One Bryant Park with a cup of joe.
Before we get into BofA's occupancy levels, however, I have an announcement. Reed Alexander, Insider's resident Wall Street newshound, will interview Bruce Larson, the chief human resources officer at private-equity firm Carlyle. Tune in via @BusinessInsider's official Instagram page at 2pm Eastern today to discuss Wall Street culture, and workplace health and wellness.
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1. Bank of America bankers, cancel your two-month-long Airbnb in Lake Tahoe this summer. Leaked audio from the investment bank is clear: Come on down to One Bryant Park.
The US bank wants its suits back in the office at least four days a week. The big wigs in M&A, meanwhile, want to see their staffers back five days a week, according to this exclusive story from Insider's Alex Morrell and Samantha Stokes.
BofA — like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan — is monitoring employee attendance, while some managers have called staff to remind them of their in-office requirements.
Top brass at most Wall Street banks are yearning for some semblance of pre-pandemic office culture. Those in favor of more bums on seats reckon summer interns and junior bankers are best-placed to benefit, as it exposes them to company culture and senior dealmakers.
But those rainmakers are hitting the road again, while other bankers have said they're coming into the office, only to sit in on the same Zoom meetings as their colleagues right next to them. Then there's the Orwellian efforts being applied to track staff, which have left several bankers irate.
Anywho, I look forward to my next meeting in Bryant Park, but I'll have a meal beforehand, so I don't have to wait 20 minutes in line for overpriced Sweetgreen.
My advice to the BofA bankers: Download Sweetgreen's app, order ahead, and avoid the salmon.
Before diving into the rest of the news, in last Friday's edition, we noted that a former analyst at Citadel was sentenced to prison for scamming Covid relief loans, according to Bloomberg. To be clear, this individual left Citadel in 2018, while the prison sentence relates to actions committed in 2020.
In other news:
2. BlackRock is expanding investors' voting power. The world's largest money manager, which has been scrutinized for its heavy influence as a shareholder, is extending voting power to investors in Canada and Ireland.
3. Some of the most sophisticated hedge fund players shared their best bets. In today's inflationary environment, Mala Gaonkar fancies $95 billion software firm ServiceNow, while Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn sees gold as the "ultimate reverse asset."
4. Executives from Goldman Sachs to Bridgewater imagined the markets in 2052. Here's what folks including Nasdaq's Adena Friedman and Macquarie's Shemara Wikramanayake told Bloomberg.
5. Another SoftBank-backed company just sacked a bunch of employees. OneTrust, a privacy-management startup, laid off 25% of staff one month after predicting a record quarter.
6. Klarna's CEO has come to the defense of BNPL. Sebastian Siemiatkowski told CNBC that Klarna's business model is "recession proof," despite laying off about 10% of its people last month, and posting a $748 million loss last year.
7. Bolt encouraged its staff to take out loans against their stock options. A former engineer at the fintech startup took out $100,000, then got canned, and now he's got 90 days to pay back much of it.
8. Brainlabs just appointed Canadian financial advisor Cannacord Genuity. The mandate comes as the digital ad firm looks for private-equity money to expand its global footprint, Insider has learned.
9. Fernando Fanton has joined Monzo as its chief product officer. The former Rappi and JustEat exec joins shortly after the UK fintech hit a $4.5 billion valuation.
10. Proper Finance just nabbed $4.3 million in seed funding. The fintech helps its peers manage their own data, which can be a cumbersome process. Here's the pitch deck that Proper used to secure commitments from Redpoint Ventures and Y-Combinator.
Done deals:
- New Terminal One's $9.5 billion project to build and operate a revamped international terminal at JFK International Airport has reached financial close. MUFG, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, Scotiabank, Société Generale, and SMBC led $6.63 billion in loans to support the deal.
- Trilon Group — an infrastructure company backed by Alpine Investors — has acquired CPH, an architecture and engineering firm.
Event invite: The fourth installment in Insider's "Financing a Sustainable Future" series is tomorrow, June 14 at noon Eastern. This event, in partnership with Bank of America, focuses on corporate governance, perhaps the most difficult measure of ESG reporting. Check out the previous three events and register for next week here.
Curated by Aaron Weinman in New York. Tips? Email aweinman@insider.com or tweet @aaronw11. Edited by Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.