"Coverage bankers are the worst characters in banking. And they know it"
If banks want to cut jobs before the end of this year, may I suggest they start with coverage bankers, who are typically this industry's biggest waste of space.
A good coverage banker is worth having, but is very rare. Most coverage bankers are not worth having. They know this and are therefore very insecure about themselves. This makes them very unpleasant to be around.
When you're a banker specialised in a particular product (equity capital markets, debt capital markets) or M&A advisory, clients will typically approach you directly, circumventing the coverage bankers who are supposed to own the relationships (but do not).
This puts coverage bankers' noses out of joint. They like to claim closeness to clients, but clients do not value them. In many banks, coverage bankers are a pointless cost. They will claim to have brought clients in, but they know that the advisory bankers and product professionals did the heavy lifting.
Because the coverage banker knows that he or she is pointless, he/she is a mess of insecurities. Because the coverage banker doesn't really have much to do, he will spend a lot of energy managing-up and trying to convince senior staff of his significance.
Coverage bankers spend a lot of time in meetings, which they will compete to be seen at and to be seen to organize. I have been at meetings where the coverage banker has done nothing but pour the tea and then claim credit for the deal that came through as a result. At many banks, there are targets around the number of external meetings to be held. With this in mind, coverage bankers will often create multiple client meetings where one would have been sufficient. It creates a lot more work for everyone else.
Coverage bankers are often at their busiest going into the final quarter. At this time of year, they will spend a lot of time making presentations for senior staff and claiming to have sourced deals. The people actually doing the work do not have the time to engage in this kind of thing. Talentless coverage bankers with a talent for praising senior management therefore get all the recognition, the rest of us are undervalued.
Florent Gaubert is the pseudonym of a banking MD
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