Morning Coffee: HSBC is considering some Citi-style job cuts. Technologists want to work for hedge funds instead of big tech

HSBC knows a thing or two about extracting staff and stripping out layers of management. It also knows that bold statements about the eradication of tens of thousands of jobs are often no more than that. 

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Three and a half years ago, HSBC's then-interim CEO Noel Quinn announced a program of 35,000 job cuts that was supposed to diminish the bank's headcount from 235,000 to 200,000 people. Quinn's cuts started strong, but tapered off: in June 2024, HSBC employed 214,000 people. Hypothetically, it still has 14,000 cuts to go. 

Now that Noel Quinn is leaving HSBC to pursue a life of relaxation, any further job cuts are the responsibility of his replacement, Georges Elhedery. And Georges is already having thoughts.

Bloomberg reports that Georges is "weighing" the idea of cutting layers of HSBC's notoriously bloated middle management, with a focus at the country level. It also won't be the first time that HSBC has attempted this - four management bands were fused into three in 2021 in an effort to reduce hierarchy, and around a decade ago, HSBC implemented a plan titled "six steps from the CEO" in an attempt to whittle down management layers. 

Needless to say, Citi has been endeavouring something similar with its program of 20,000 job cuts under project Bora Bora, of which 7,000 came from stripping out layers of management. At Citi, the cuts entailed country managers and divisional and business managers. The US bank worked its way down through the hierarchy over a six month period ending in April this year. it has 13,000 other cuts to go.

Standard Chartered is also on the delayering bandwagon. It's attempting to address its "crap" share price by restructuring management in its investment bank and by doing away with unnecessary layers. Standard Chartered's price is up a third since February, although this has more to do with the share buyback than the departure of superfluous senior talent. 

Bloomberg says Elhedery's cost cutting considerations are still at an early stage and that his plans may change, although some kind of plan seems inevitable. Georges doesn't actually become CEO until September 2nd, so HSBC's middle managers are safe for another week yet. 

Separately, now that working for a big technology company is neither a secure job nor an opportunity to do good in the world, technologists have decided they want to work for hedge fund Millennium instead. 

Speaking to Irish publication Silicon Republic, Rob Newton, Millennium's global head of technology infrastructure, said applicants to the firm with ‘big tech’ experience increased 300% between 2022 and 2023. John Talarico, Millennium's global head of talent acquisition, said something similar in July.  Millennium is an appealing place to work, said Talarico: more than 1,400 of Millennium's total employees are technologists and they're busy with everything from data analytics, to low latency computing, sophisticated information security technology, cloud computing and machine learning. Hedge funds are the new Google. 

Meanwhile...

Mark Maislish, Goldman Sachs’s former head of equity syndicate in Europe, who quit the Wall Street bank to join Citadel earlier this year, has left the hedge fund after just four months. (Financial News) 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. commodities trading co-head Qin Xiao, is leaving at the end of this year. Anthony Dewell, the previous head of commodities at the bank left for Millennium in October 2022. (Bloomberg) 

Goldman Sachs hired Tyler Miller from Citi as a partner in its power banking team. (Bloomberg) 

Barclays hired hired Martin Douglass from Morgan Stanley to lead its financial sponsors mergers and acquisitions business. (Bloomberg) 

Tom Kalaris, the former head of Barclays wealth, wanted to be chief executive of Saranac Partners, but the FCA says he's not fit and proper enough to hold a senior role again. (Bloomberg) 

Nomura wants to hire mid-level wealth talent. (Bloomberg) 

Kamala Harris would probably adhere to Biden's pledge not to increase taxes for households earning less than $400k per year. She may also want to tax the unrealized capital gains of people earning more than $100m a year. (WSJ) 

How to get an internship at JPMorgan: meet a diversity recruiter and message them when you finish a step in the application process. "Every time I finished a step in the application process, I messaged him on LinkedIn, and he advocated for me to the recruiters." (Business Insider) 

How to make millions as a professional whistleblower: watch out for ostentatious posts on Instagram. “They just seem too good to be true. I’ve found so many leads this way.” (GQ)

The era of the prickly out of work message: “I am out of the office having way more fun than communicating with you. I will likely forget to email you back.” (WSJ) 

The more you smoke cannabis, the more likely you are to miss work. (Fortune) 

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