Morning Coffee: London Deutsche Bank MD now a househusband and "domestic god." Top earning traders in the market leave after restructuring

If you're a managing director at Deutsche Bank, you are not badly paid. If you're a material risk taker there (a senior banker or trader), you might expect to earn $2m. If you're a standard employee at Deutsche's investment bank, you might expect to earn $330k.

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Hamish Badenoch was neither of these things. According to his LinkedIn profile, Badenoch was a managing director and 'global head of future work and real estate transformation' when he left Deutsche Bank's London office in March 2025. During his 15 year tenure at the German bank, he was also everything from the lead for migrating staff out of the UK post-Brexit to a COO of global markets. Hamish was therefore neither a banker nor a trader, but in the middle office. 

Now, though, he is none of those things. The Times says Badenoch is a domestic god. Since leaving Deutsche Bank 19 months ago, he is a man at home. He cooks, he tidies, he does the washing-up, he braids his daughters' hair, he takes the children to school, he worries about their education. His wife has lucked out, say her friends. She also does the washing-up sometimes, but only when she's not reading her emails. 

There are plenty of female bankers with househusbands. Citi CEO Jane Fraser has one in the form of former banker Alberto Piedra, who gave up work to support her in 2009. Kathleen McCarthy, Blackstone's global head of real estate has one, in the form of Matt Baldwin, a former CFO of a research firm, who reportedly now specialises in cooking spicy pasta and soft eggs. 

Hamish Badenoch's wife is not a banker. She is Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party. Badenoch is also a Conservative and committed to supporting his wife in her quest to become Prime Minister of the UK.

Hamish sounds like a nice guy. He is bookish, considered, thoughtful, collegiate, supportive and conscientious, says the Times. Kemi is higher maintenance and 'outspoken, passionate and fiery.' Kemi too once worked in banking and was an associate director at Coutts. It appears to be a successful union of two people who once worked in banking, one of whom is happy to hang out making homemade haggis. 

Separately, oil traders at Macquarie were historically some of the best paid people in the market. Nick O'Kane, who was Macquarie's former global head of commodities, was paid $39m in one year. But O'Kane left in 2024, and these are different times.

Bloomberg reports that Macquarie has been restructuring its commodities team and that people have been left. 

Those people include oil traders Daniel Mortleman, Simon Fender, Natalia de la Huerga and Marc Aguilar, some who had been there for decades. 

They may have left of their own accord, says Bloomberg. They may also have left because Macquarie was merging the trading divisions of Macquarie Bank Ltd. with the Macquarie Commodities Trading SA unit. These are turbulent times.

Meanwhile...

Citadel Securities says it's only just getting started in fixed income. “Over the next couple of years, we will consider expanding and growing in fixed income. We are not in a hurry, but we do have some gaps there in our offering.” (Bloomberg) 

Arini’s Master fund lost an estimated 7% in October, and is down more than 21% this year. (FT)

Andy Silver, head of credit trading at Brevan Howard, is leaving. (Bloomberg) 

Hudson River has a data centre in an olivine mine inside a mountain in Western Norway, where servers are cooled with water from a fjord. (Bloomberg) 

Jon Gray at Blackstone says AI is not a bubble. “When you think about a bubble, you think about building capacity and then hoping the demand comes. With AI, you’re building capacity, and you’re hoping you can keep up with the demand.” (Bloomberg) 

Private credit firms are participating in festival-style events involving speed dating and pickleball in an effort to seduce rich retail investors. (WSJ) 

Compute futures are coming soon. Commodity firms like ADM Investor Services, BGC Group and Nanhua USA are preparing to trade them. (Bloomberg) 

Aloke Gupta, head of ECM at Citi says: "“The velocity of activity will remain, because a lot of it is long-term focused. The desire to IPO remains as strong as it’s ever been.” (Bloomberg) 

Barclays' CEO said the fixed income business performed badly. “This is always the house that fixed income built. I am a fixed income guy through and through . . . so I am very disappointed and this will get my attention.” (FT)

Barclays has been prioritising prime finance and diverted balance sheet from macro traders to its prime business in Asia after it hit capacity limits. (Bloomberg) 

Ex-Credit Suisse MDs Martin Ego and Jeffrey Jennings wanted their deferred compensation certificates worth $360k and $595k but won't be getting them. (Bloomberg) 

The total number of employees requiring annual fit and proper checks in London has been reduced by two-thirds to about 74,000. By removing the requirement to report more minor breaches of conduct, this is supposed to free banks to focus on “more serious misconduct”. (FT)

Igor Tulchinsky at WorldQuant sponsored the Bayeux Tapestry in London and thinks it's "very visceral.” He has some life mottos like “When I’m scared, I run,” and is writing a book about cutting your losses. (The Independent) 

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