Dear Readers,
It was "millennial money week" here at BI, where we got the results back from an INSIDER and Morning Consult survey that polled 4,400 young Americans on their spending habits.
We published a number of stories based on the results. Here are some of the key findings.
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Finances
1) Twenty-eight percent of millennials think they're worse off financially than they thought they'd be a decade ago.
2) A variety of economic factors have played a role in delaying some millennials' wealth-building process. The Great Recession, student-loan debt, and a higher cost of living have made it difficult for millennials to save.
College
1) Nearly half of millennials who have or have had student-loan debt think college wasn't worthwhile.
2) The divide between people who do think college was worth it and those who don't is clear: Millennials who are still paying off their student-loan debt feel worse about having gone to college than millennials who have already paid off their debt.
Retirement
1) Many Americans expect to buy a house or retire one day but aren't saving for it.
2) One-quarter of millennials who expect to retire between ages 66 and 75 have no retirement savings account.
3) Nearly half of Gen Xers have no retirement account, despite most expecting to retire between 56 and 75.
But, despite all of these money worries, our survey shows that millennials aren't curbing their spending. In fact, if given an extra $1,000 in a month, millennials and baby boomers would spend similarly. And while millennials are delaying major life events such as buying a house and having kids (due in large part to massive student loan debt), they aren't abandoning these things entirely.
Bottom line: millennials have been accused of killing razors, mayo, golf, weddings, beer, and cereal. The rationale for this (at least according to the Fed) has been that it's because younger Americans don't have as much money to spend than previous generations. But the truth is a lot more complicated.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
Olivia
Goldman Sachs
Rich Friedman stands in Goldmans's 200 West St lobby
'It's good to be Rich': Meet the Goldman Sachs banker who has built a private investing empire that goes head-to-head with Blackstone - and you've probably never heard of him
The Champagne was flowing in February 2018 when the Goldman Sachs executive Rich Friedman welcomed a couple hundred guests to the Rainbow Room. The Manhattan landmark, opened in 1934, offers a menu with beef Wellington and baked Alaska and serves a $162 brunch. Overlooking Manhattan from the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center, guests danced and chatted as Stevie Wonder played piano.
On the surface, the event was a celebration of Friedman's 60th birthday. But it could have easily been a celebration of a Goldman Sachs career entering its golden years. Therecent retirement of CEO Lloyd Blankfein made Friedman the longest-tenured partner at Goldman.
Since 1991, Friedman has built the bank's private-investing activities into a sprawling collection of funds that have invested more than $180 billion in real estate and infrastructure, private equity, and credit markets that often competes with flashier investment firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR.
Though advocates put him in the pantheon of buyout greats, Friedman hasn't enjoyed the same name recognition as men with names like Schwarzman, Kravis, and Rubenstein. That's by design, according to interviews with about a dozen current and former colleagues, clients, and competitors.
Tim Throsby sent an email to Barclays' CEO with the title 'irreconcilable.' He warned that a plan to gut compensation by 20% and boost profitability was unrealistic.
Tim Throsby, a former JPMorgan banker hired by Barclays to much fanfare to run its investment bank, drafted an email over the weekend of March 23 to 24. By the time he got around to sending it to CEO Jes Staley, he was already out.
The subject line of the email, according to someone who had seen it, was "irreconcilable."
The email was sent to Staley and a number of other senior leaders on March 28, a day after Throsby's shock departure from Barclays was announced, and rehashed the concerns he held over his boss' strategy. The email said Staley planned for cost reductions and job cuts - including a 20% cut to total compensation - for Barclays International, as well as a reduction in reserves held in case of credit losses, according to the person.
Silicon Valley has made top data-science talent too expensive for many hedge funds, so they're getting creative to compete
On one side, there are billions of dollars from the world's biggest investors ready to be run by your algorithm. On the other, there's a chance to work at the most talked-about companies on the planet -right as they promise to turn their employees into millionaires overnight.
The battle for top tech talent between Wall Street and Silicon Valley is nothing new, but it's reaching a fever pitch in the hedge fund industry, industry participants and consultants said, as both sides eye billions of dollars up for grabs thanks to a host of buzzy tech unicorns expected to go public, like Uber, Slack, and Pinterest.
This Silicon Valley gold rush has forced hedge funds to grapple with a problem they hardly ever run into: The industry is being outbid for the top talent.
YieldStreet, a fintech company offering exotic investments in things like art, but experts are warning about the risk
Wealthy individuals who want to reap the financial benefits of investing in a Monet without actually owning an $80 million painting will soon have a new option.
YieldStreet, a financial platform that offers exotic investment products like marine finance and loans to law firms to the mass affluent, is buying an company called Athena Art Finance from private equity firm Carlyle in a deal valued at $170 million. YieldStreet's 100,000 investors will be able to invest in art financing as a result of the deal.
The deal comes as more financial technology players are trying to open up access to investments previously reserved for institutional or ultra-wealthy investors, such as private equity. Earlier this week, Nasdaq and iCapital, a BlackRock-backed alternative investment company, said they're working to create a platform that will launch later this year to allow private fund investors to sell their stakes before the end of a fund's life.
BlackRock-backed iCapital is teaming up with Nasdaq to create a private equity fund selling platform for wealthy investors
As wealthy individuals get into private equity and other illiquid investments in greater numbers than ever, they're increasingly looking for ways to get out, too.
Institutional investors, who long dominated strategies like venture capital, private equity real estate, and private credit, have worked with advisers to sell their fund stakes on the secondaries market. That option hasn't been available to individual investors, who may not be able to keep their capital locked up for the decade or longer that a private fund requires.
Nasdaq and iCapital, a BlackRock-backed alternative investment company, are now seeking to give investors that option by creating a platform that will launch later this year, executives told Business Insider.
An inside look at Digital Asset, the blockchain company that's shifting strategies as Wall Street loses interest in the technology
A blockchain company that no longer deals solely with blockchains.
Digital Asset made a name for itself as a leader in how distributed-ledger technology would be implemented on Wall Street when it burst onto the scene in 2014. Big-name backers, large funding rounds, and a former high-profile bank executive caused it to turn heads.
Five years later the industry is still considering how best to implement distributed-ledger technology. While nearly every Wall Street firm has invested resources into investigating blockchains, real-world applications of the technology beyond pilot programs have been largely nonexistent.
Wall Street move of the week:
Barclays just lost two more executives as Ravi Singh departs after only four months
In markets:
- Bank of America scoured hundreds of mutual funds with $1.5 trillion in assets and identified 7 neglected stocks poised to surge after crushing earnings
- A stock picker who's dominating 92% of his peers breaks down his market-beating strategy - and reveals 5 stocks he loves, even as earnings growth dries up
- America's biggest wealth manager oversees $39 billion for the ultrarich. Here are the 5 ways he says you can invest like 'the millionaire next door.'
In tech news:
Other good stories from around the newsroom:
- The new CEO behind Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons reveals his plans for the future of the chains
- The best bosses ask 2 simple questions when they check in with their team members every week
- Millennials are pouring money into gym memberships and boutique fitness classes. A financial expert says spending on fitness is a good money decision for 2 key reasons.