Bank hiring 25 MDs this year deploys tactic to woo recruits

2025 was a good year for investment bankers. The Financial Times notes that it was, in fact, the best year since the fine time of 2021, and that 2025’s total investment banking revenues of $38bn were up 50% on the nadir of 2023. 

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

Such years inspire hiring. The big US banks reporting their fourth quarter results this week may announce new intentions to recruit senior bankers in 2026. In the meantime, one of their number has already let its intentions be known. – Wells Fargo.

Speaking to the FT, Fernando Rivas, head of Wells Fargo’s corporate and investment bank, said last week that the bank intends to add 25-30 new managing directors (MDs) in 2026, and then again in 2027, following on from the 125 investment bank MDs it’s hired since 2019. The FT says Wells Fargo’s new-new MDs will be focused on areas like healthcare and technology, industrials and financial sponsors.

Wells Fargo will not be alone in hiring. JPMorgan hired 100 senior bankers last year and wants to hire still. UBS has declared an intention to hire MDs in North America (while potentially firing elsewhere). Citi and Jefferies may, however, moderate their appetites.

Wells Fargo is something of a connoisseur when it comes to recruiting. It likes to hire the finest recruits from the finest rivals. They include people like Jeff Hogan, Wells Fargo’s global head of M&A. Hogan was Morgan Stanley’s star technology banker until he joined Wells Fargo in May 2023. Hogan spent 27 years at Morgan Stanley, and seems to have been quite happy there. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that a headhunter called Hogan and tried to woo him for Wells, but that Hogan was not receptive. It was only when Tim O’Hara, Wells Fargo’s head of banking (who joined from BlackRock and was once at Credit Suisse), got on the phone himself that Hogan suddenly felt enthusiastic. Such tactics are not unusual. Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi, actually visited Andy Sieg at home to persuade him to become head of wealth. 

Since O’Hara’s Hogan call, Wells Fargo has added tens of other MDs and shuffled up the league table to sixth place. The FT notes that Wells Fargo ranked 9th for M&A in December, up from 17th in 2024 and that it quadrupled the deals it advised on to $423bn last year.

It helps that Wells no longer has its assets capped at $2 trillion by US regulators, who imposed the cap in 2018 after the bank was found to have fabricated savings and current accounts. Wells Fargo is now run by Charlie Scharf, a former JPMorgan executive and friend of Jamie Dimon, who joined in 2019 and reportedly sipped Champagne last June when the cap was lifted. It’s not clear whether Scharf calls potential hires too.

In the absence of the asset cap, the FT says Wells Fargo also has aspirations to grow its markets business. It can now work with hedge funds, says Rivas. There are plans to expand in areas like prime broking. 

The hiring spree may mean more people receive calls from O’Hara persuading them to join. Or maybe not. In December, the Wall Street Journal quoted David DeNunzio, Wells Fargo’s chairman of M&A, who declared that people are now approaching Wells Fargo themselves. “We no longer have to explain who we are and what we are doing here,” he said. 

Separately, Jerome Powell’s grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment, have already resulted in a fall in the dollar and a rise in the gold price. 

The Wall Street Journal notes that President Trump is denying any involvement with the subpoenas. Ostensibly, they are related to Powell’s testimony last summer regarding the Federal Reserve’s building project. By the middle of 2025, this was reportedly expected to cost $2.5bn upon completion; $700m more than initially projected.  

The big additional cost is a source of contention, but is being excused by the complexity of renovating the buildings, built in the 1930s. The Fed’s own site notes that there’s been no comprehensive renovation for 100 years and that costs have spiralled due to inflationary pressure on materials, equipment and labour and to asbestos, toxic contamination, plus an unexpectedly high water table. Contrary to some reports, there’s no new VIP dining room and no “VIP elevator.”

In a statement, Powell said the subpoena has nothing to do with the renovations and everything to do with Trump’s attempt to get him to cut rates. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” Powell observed. 

Speaking to NBC News, Trump said: “I wouldn’t even think of doing it that way. What should pressure him is the fact that rates are far too high. That’s the only pressure he’s got.”

Meanwhile…

Chris Rokos appears to have paid himself £477m in profits in the year to March 2025, the largest amount since he appeared to pay himself £509m in 2021. (FT)

Private equity funds are increasingly selling their investments to themselves. Last year, a record $110bn in secondary deals were struck, up 25% on 2024’s record year. (Financial Times) 

James Malick, the ex-Millennium man who joined Point72 as chief strategy officer in 2023, has left again. (Business Insider) 

Samuel French left BofA Merrill Lynch and Joseph Anastasio left Citi to co-head high touch equities sales trading at Citadel Securities. (Global Trading) 

Family offices are the best employers. These are the firms that move quickly, don’t deal with superfluous compliance meetings, avoid spending countless hours working on useless 150-page presentations (which we all know nobody reads, and senior members of a team hoard for personal reasons) and yet play quite a unique role in the financial system. (The ibanker) 

Neema and Padi Raphael are both siblings and partners at Goldman Sachs. Their parents said: “We made education and learning a priority, and encouraged curiosity, reasoning, and discourse.” (Business Insider) 

Industry, really is a vampire story. The blood here is money. The themes are seduction, eroticism and soul-death. (WSJ) 

People don’t join PE because they love businesses or because they want to innovate. They join because it’s one of the safest, highest-paid tracks in America. It is an industry for spreadsheet aristocrats. (X)  

Jobs requiring strong soft skills but relatively little mathematical aptitude (among them lawyers, therapists and nurses) have fared much better than those requiring strong numerical talent but fewer social skills (among them statistical assistants and programmers). (FT) 

Forget dating apps, visit Equinox. (Substack)

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22  Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email [email protected]. 

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.