Morning Coffee: Banking VPs & associates admit to taking drugs to survive in the job. The $70bn hedge fund nepo who seems difficult to work for
What do you do when the energy is flagging, you’re eighty hours into a ninety-hour week and someone needs you to really concentrate on changing the colour scheme on a slide pack from ochre yellow to mustard yellow? According to a number of currently working bankers who have spoken to the Wall Street Journal and been surprisingly willing to be quoted under their own names, you reach for drugs that are meant to treat ADHD and you carry on.
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The bankers talking about their use of Adderall and similar stimulants on Wall Street include Trevor Lunsford, a vice president working in M&A in Washington DC, who said he's taken it for seven years and that it's a "very core, integral component of my life, and to me, something that is a very, very important tool." This is particularly the case when he works 22-hour days. There's also Jonah Frey, a private equity principal and former banking analyst and associate, who says he increased the dosage when he became an associate and his workload quadrupled. He was whipped into a "productive frenzy" but he lost weight and eventually left work and moved back with his parents to go cold turkey. Frey says he wasn't alone in his habit: colleagues would snort crushed Adderall off the desk; "Nobody blinked an eye."
The use and abuse of ADHD stimulants on Wall Street is an open secret of the industry. It's difficult to crack down without penalising people who actually need to have their ADHD conditions treated. Former Credit Suisse and Centerview banker turned memelord Mark Moran describes getting a prescription after being coached on what to say by his fellow interns. Unfortunately, the drug can be detrimental, particularly in excess: another young commodities analyst told the WSJ that although the drug meant she could suddenly analyze obscure trends in commodities markets and build complex forecasts withuot needing a break, the drug also altered her personality and made her more prone to gambling in penny stocks.
Separately, It is difficult to resist the temptation to read between the lines in Business Insider’s latest profile of Gordon Singer, managing partner of the London office of Elliott Management. There are quotes describing his management style as “blunt, to put it charitably” and saying that “He asked good questions in the wrong tone”. It’s noted that, with the departure of Nabeel Bhanji, he’s the only partner left in London, and that many of the local investment staff now report to sector heads in New York rather than to him. Even when he’s described as “the most well rounded investor at the firm”, it’s immediately qualified by adding “other than his father”.
However, it's not so simple a narrative as “impossible annoying hedge fund manager who can’t be fired because he’s the son of the founder”. He also seems to have built a loyal team around him, inspired by a willingness to back-up people in London whose investment ideas need defending at the head office in New York, where his father works.
Singer may, therefore, have used his nepo powers for good rather than evil – Paul Singer is also not exactly world-renowned as being a cuddly or avuncular persona. Anyone who’s had a few years experience in banking knows that a boss who is prepared to back their people to the hilt rather than letting pain flow downhill is worth their weight in gold and can be forgiven almost any other personality quirks.
Equally, the departures from London also seem to have been a result of decisions taken in New York rather than anything that could be blamed on Gordon Singer. When he was allowed to run the overseas office as an independent princedom, the local employees valued the freedom they were given to follow “quirky” but profitable ideas in structured finance. Lately, Elliott has tried to run more of an integrated investment committee and push everyone toward things that can move the dial on its $70bn assets under management. Unsurprisingly, some of the staff decided they’d rather set up their own smaller and more nimble operations to concentrate on the fun stuff.
Despite the departures, Elliott's London office is bigger than it’s ever been at 130 staff, and has apparently had a record year for performance. So the only blight on Gordon's career is one that’s familiar to heirs apparent all over the world – his father apparently aims to live to the age of 110, and to keep working until he drops.
Meanwhile …
As mentioned above, Nabeel Bhanji recently left Elliott Management to go to Citadel. Now he’s made a follow-on hire of Pawel Serej, as it looks like an activist practice is being built up. (FT)
Apparently when Jamie Dimon made a call to congratulate Donald Trump on election night, he was allowed to go to voicemail. This might be the first occasion in the twentieth century on which JD couldn’t get his call picked up. (New York Post)
The Supreme Court has struck down the NASDAQ policy requiring companies wishing to list on their exchange to meet standards of board diversity. That might prove awkward for firms like Goldman Sachs which have their own board-diversity requirements for IPO clients, as they are now the gatekeepers. (Business Insider)
Since 2024 bonus season looks like it might be a bit better than expected, Bloomberg have rushed out a last-minute guide to buying slightly better champagne than you might otherwise have considered. (Bloomberg)
Sanjay Shah continues not to take things too seriously – the hedge fund manager appeared in court wearing a red Santa hat in order to get the not terribly festive news that he was sentenced to twelve years for tax fraud. He’s appealed. (Sky)
If you happened to watch the film “Friday the 13th” on Friday last week, you might not have known that the teenager who gets shot with arrows later became head of financial sponsors at Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch and is currently at a middle market private equity firm (TMZ)
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