Bank of America gave an early holiday present to nearly 140 employees this week when it announced its latest class of managing directors. Unlike some rivals like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America doesn’t publicize the names, but Business Insider was able to get its hands on the list. Here are the highlights.
Rewarding loyalty
The powers that be at Bank of America had one major issue when naming this year’s class of MDs: what to do with their M&A bankers. Advisory revenue fell 33% in the first nine months of 2018compared to the same period last year amid internal complaints that the firm was being too risk averse, reportedly leading to an exodus of MDs and the departure of investment banking chief Christian Meissner. Chief Executive Brian Moynihan singled out M&A bankers following the second quarter, noting “the team knows they can do a better job.”
The bank obviously isn’t going to promote underperformers, but it also doesn’t want to face more defections. So it rewarded heralded lifers like John Arbuckle, who started as an intern at Merrill Lynch in 2004 before the merger. He was a member of the bank’s industrials team in the U.S. until 2014, when he moved to London to work in M&A. He also found time to get his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management halfway through his 14-year run at Bank of America. He’s worked on a number of big-name transportation deals, including at least three with Hertz Global Holdings.
Other long-tenured M&A bankers who made MD include Mark Daniels, who has spent more than a decade with BAML after starting as an associate, and Ryan Caswell, a 10-year veteran of its West Coast FIG group. Perhaps the biggest commonality among the 67 global banking employees that made MD is their tenure with the bank. BAML rewarded its most loyal investment bankers, particularly its M&A.
Speaking of tenure…
One of the more interesting stories is Frank Fogliano, a global treasury services sales manager working out of New York. Fogliano spent 34 years at J.P. Morgan and its predecessor banks, finally making MD in 2000, according to LinkedIn. His stint with JPM ended in 2008 along with tens of thousands of others. Fogliano found work at BAML the following year but not as an MD. He’s split his time as a senior vice president and director. A decade later, he’s back to being a managing director. Perseverance paid off.
FICC vs. equities
Within sales and trading, Bank of America’s equities business has had the better year, at least compared to 2017. Equities revenue was up 20% through three the first three quarters while fixed income revenue has lagged a few percentage points. However, one good year doesn’t change the fact that fixed income is still BAML’s cash cow within its markets business.
It appears significantly more people who work in fixed income made MD than their counterparts in equities. The list includes Geoff Morton, head of EMEA eCredit strats; Janna McLeod, director of emerging market FICC sales; Matthew Malouin, head of convertible bond trading; Ian Pellicena, a director of credit sales; senior distressed debt analyst Robert Levinson; senior credit trader Felipe Padin Iglesias; and FICC sales director Ebru (Gonenc) Draman.
Mortgage loan officers
Though residential mortgage revenues continue to slide at Bank of America, the firm took care of its top producers. Nearly a dozen mortgage loan officers made MD – something you typically don’t see at other investment banks.
A career academic made MD
If you need a reminder of the importance of quants, look no further than Daniel Giamouridis, the bank’s global head of scientific implementation who only joined the firm in 2016. The London-based quant trading strategist has spent 15 years teaching at Athens University of Economics and Business and Lancaster University Management School. He’s also an honorary visiting fellow at Cass Business School (where he got his PhD in finance) and is the co-editor of the CFA Institute’s Financial Analyst Journal. He’s now a managing director at Bank of America to boot. Giamouridis previously consulted at Citi while teaching.
Here’s the full list for global Markets:
Mark Baker; Scott Barek; Jeremie Benamara; Peter Bisztyga; Paul Bjurstrom; Youssef Boujemaoui; Dan Bowerman; Matt Bristow; Stephen Byrne; Courtney Campbell; Carlos Capistran; Richard Cheung; Karl Choi; Neal Desai; Mary Ann Dickson; Ebru Draman; Nick Druett; Julien Dumoulin-Smith; Gaylen Duncan; Andrey Gal; Daniel Giamouridis; James Goldsbrough; Justin Hicks; Felipe Iglesias; Allegra Ivey; Junji Iwanaga; Ian Jackson; Alex Kallmann; Rahra Kang; Janice Ko; Nilesh Kothari; Kim Laurora; Mike Lekan; Matt Leslie; Malek Letaief; Rob Levinson; Joyce Liang; Shahram Mahini; Matt Malouin; Jim McDonnell; Janna McLeod; Geoff Morton; Brian Mulholland; Paul O’Keeffe; Puneet Pardasani; Robert Parkes; Ian Pellicena; Craig Pengitore; Seth Ramsey; Steven Regli; Natalie Reska; Michael Roberts; Jorge Rodriguez; Paul Rogers; Brian Roth; Jon Rymsha; Takayuki Saito; Nitin Saksena; Todd Scolnick; Amish Shah; Adam Shaw; Gregory Sherman; Bruno Simonato; Gaurav Sultania; John Sun; Chales Sussman; Ping Tan; Simon Torjmane; Christian Tosi; David Wright; Daniel Ziluca.
And here’s the full list for global banking:
Richard Abel; Cathy Agle; Andrea Albright; John Arbuckle; Christian Backes; Begona Benito; Pierre Bouteiller; Fernanda Castro Herrera; Ryan Caswell; Chanhee Cho; Bill Clement; Chris Cote; Marc Daniels; Michael Delaney; Allison Edwards; Frank Fogliano; Brian Fox; Meg Garand; Mike Gionfriddo; Brian Grech; Siddharth Gupta; Junichi Hashimoto; Matt Hawkins; Michael Hsueh; Dawei Huang; Sirisha Kadamalakalva; Rafael Kasai; Jacqui Kirk; Magda Kleuser-Heinrich; Matthias Konrad; Tristan Lacroix; Henrik Lang; Jung Lee; Nataliya Lee; Paul Liptak; Yvonee Lo; Jaime Lopez; Bo Lyu; Brittany Marten; Roman Meyer; Karen Mincey; Scot Mitchell; Jay Norris; Meghan O’Donnell; Marcus Olsson; Umberto Parmeggiani; Ryan Parrish; Rowland Phillips; Jenn Reid; Angus Reynolds; Brandon Rice; Alex Schweisgut; Oscar Soto; Jeff Standish; Nigel Steffensen; Marc Striowski; Diego Suarez; Nobuku Sugitani; Alvin Tang; Masashi Toda; Jonathon Traer-Clark; Jill Trainor; Abhishek Vats; Brooke Wachtel; Alex Wan; Roy Wouters; Min Zhao.
Beecher Tuttle – Read the full article on efinancialcareers.com
