When someone gets a job at one of the best paying multistrategy funds, it seems a bit weird to ask, 'Why?' But Goldman Sachs is presumably sad to see him go and Ahmed - who had been a VP there for five years - might have expected to rise up the ranks. This is the week that Goldman promotes its new managing directors, after all. He'd been on an accelerated timeline until now.
Goldman has historically tended to believe that "if you're good enough, you're old enough." Kunal Shah, for example, was a managing director by the age of 27, and was barely in his thirties when he made partner. But the step up from vice president is a big one.
It's also conceivable that Ahmed simply wanted out from GS. Most young traders would rather be VPs with a $2m bonus than MDs with a $1m bonus.
In any case, whatever happened in the promotion committees, it's well known that as well as being an excellent payer, Dimitri Balyasny has a unique way to make people feel loved, so any star macro trader was always going to be at risk. Wajih Ahmed's career continues to sparkle, and Goldman Sachs might be wondering quite how they let him slip through the net.
Elsewhere, it seems that the financial sponsors industry is a little touchy when it comes to perceived criticism from the sell side. When Colm Kelleher of UBS suggested that there was a bit of a trend toward "rating shopping" in the private credit market, from smaller credit rating agencies that have incentives to be more lenient, it was barely a few hours before Marc Rowan of Apollo was saying "he's just wrong" on a conference call.
It's reminiscent of the hurt feelings from a couple of weeks ago, when Jamie Dimon ventured that there's "rarely just one cockroach in the kitchen" when it comes to credit losses. It gives the impression that some nerves have been touched.
Those nerves might have little to do with credit quality. Rather, the financial sponsors clients, who have had it all their own way for so long, might be starting to perceive that they just aren't as important as they used to be. A few years ago, smart bankers like Kelleher or Dimon would never have said anything to upset the biggest fee payers in the world. Nowadays, they're just another part of the revenue pool. And that's really got to sting.
Meanwhile ...
The judges in Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal case are apparently "trying really hard" to look at the big picture, but they keep being distracted by the extent to which his attorneys are focusing on the previous judge having been mean to him. (Bloomberg)
Roelof Botha has been asked to step aside by the "stewards" of Sequoia Capital, which appears not to have been a very happy ship recently. (WSJ)
Ansh Kalra has left Citadel for Balyasny, although he will have a pretty spectacular garden by the time he gets there - he's apparently on a two-year non-compete. Kalra is not actually a trader or portfolio manager though. He's the head of "Business Development" for Citadel's global quant division, and Citadel seems to have lost quite a few of these internal recruiters recently. (Business Insider)
If there's one thing that drives investment banking management mad, it's hotel room upgrades and excessive food expenses. Imagine their fury at discovering that these may have been part of the reason why Charlie Javice's legal bills (which JPM was obliged to pay) are almost as large as the fraud she was convicted of. (Bloomberg)
Now that bulge bracket banks are beginning to allow managers to use chatbots to write performance reviews (and therefore, quite likely, to read them), people are beginning to ask what the point of these things ever was in the first place. (WSJ)
Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor responsible for the 2023 "mini-budget" which brought down Liz Truss's government, is helping launch a "crypto treasury" flotation. Presumably he's been recruited partly for the knowledge of London listing rules and partly for the meme potential. (FT)
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