Goldman, BofA, Citi Employees Join Jefferies In Expecting “Slashed’ Bonuses This Holiday Season

It turns out it isn’t just Jefferies, as we noted days ago…

In fact, all major banks across Wall Street look ready to “slash” bonuses for the upcoming holiday season, marking a direct pivot from the lavish bonuses they offered up last year, according to multiple sources. 

Bonus pools could be cut as much as 30% at banks like JP Morgan and Bank of America this year due to a slowdown in dealmaking and a tightening economic picture. 

Blooomberg noted this week that investment bankers could wind up getting hit the hardest: revenues for banks could be lower by 50% in 2023. Lower tier employees may see no bonuses at all, follow up reporting by the NY Post noted. 

At Goldman, the Post says traders are also facing cuts to their bonus pools despite the global markets division of the bank raking in $25 billion in 2022. Traders were informed their bonus pool would be cut by “a low double digit percentage” last week.

Some bankers could see bonuses cut as much as 45%, the report speculates. Many are just thankful to be keeping their jobs, it adds. 

Recall, days ago we noted that bankers at Jefferies are also being told to expect smaller bonuses. The firm has warned its staff that 2022 is going to be a “difficult compensation season”.

Jefferies chief executive Rich Handler and president Brian Friedman penned a memo that went out to employees last week, claiming that due to the bank’s aggressive hiring over the last 3 years, in combination with slumping deals, that bonuses would come in lighter than normal.

The letter says: “As always, we will do the right thing for the long-term success of everyone at Jefferies and to continuously invest in our people and our firm, so we can continue to build and prosper. Let’s just spell it out here: ‘This is going to be a more difficult compensation season at Jefferies, just like it will be for every firm in our industry.'”

It continues: “2019 was a decent year for Jefferies and our industry. Despite Covid, 2020 was a very good year and we all know 2021 was the type of year that comes along very rarely in a finance professional’s career.”