How Much Extra To Move Jobs?

That's the conundrum I have been faced with this morning, following another headhunter call. Of course, the salary levels they claim are usually best-case and designed to hook you into taking it further. This one dangled the prospect of an extra £50,000 increase in my base salary if I moved.

However after about 5mins deliberation, the answer is going to be 'no'. It is certainly tempting from one perspective, but one problem is that the bank in question is terrible: without naming names, one of those suffering from merger pains, combined with being incompetently run for years - hence is on government life support and has made huge losses.

Most of all though, there is more to this than just money. Let me just reassure you that there is no loyalty for the bank, or love for the 'unique team culture' - every bank spouts waffle about it being a giant family and that they are the best. Unfortunately the brutal culling of staff in the last year merely illustrated the fallacy to those corporate clones too stupid to see it before.

Working for yourself is the only place to aim for in life. So yes, an extra £50k now would be nice, but the cost is all of the hassle and risk of a new job. When I factor in work on my business ahead of the launch later this year, I realised what is much more important to me. At present I have got time to work on this almost daily, but that could easily change with a new boss on my shoulder, and needing to forge a reputation at a new place.

Anyway it's an interesting question, and highlights to me how my priorities have changed so significantly since I mentally made the jump towards my aspirations being out of the sector.

Although not yet announced, Pershing Square are about to submit a counter-offer on the DIP financing. It is unsurprising because without the innovative equity conversion option they had included as the DIP financier, they lose a valuable hedge against their significant existing holdings. This will be good news for GGP again, as any competition around terms of financing benefits the firm - I am just hoping to see the equity conversion option dropped, but matching the other loan terms with a lower interest rate is a more likely sweetener.

Otherwise Reuters reported last week that Simon Property Group have raised more capital in another significant stock offering. They cite the reason being for "general corporate purposes", but pointedly there is no longer a denial of interest in future acquisitions, just citing timing.

Due to the market saturation (in the US) of mall owners, all of the REIT's need to expand their market shares through acquisitions. As such, and despite denials, Westfield are also lining up to compete with Simon and Vornado (who have openly admitted interest) for any asset sales that GGP decide to put out there.

As with DIP financing, it is much better to have competition in a sale like this. On an unrelated rumour, the Court will reconvene tomorrow to review the DIP financing options and progress further. For now this is a side show to the bigger issue relating to creditors and the SPE inclusions discussed in my last post.

Protests for the Cameras

It has been an amusing week so far in the City. Apart from everybody using it as an excuse to turn up in jeans and send around some great piss-taking jokes regarding the protests, nothing much has actually happened until today.

Then of course, the much publicised four "horsemen of the apocalypse" converging on the Bank of England to lay siege to financial institutions. The whole event has been nothing more than a symbolic gesture, largely for the cameras with gimmicks like this: I suppose the scuffles, pushing around and football crowd like chanting is all about garnering a little attention. Hey, if it relieves some stress then feel free - it's not going to change a damn thing. Over at my bank around the corner, we were just out of sight of all the fun, but it didn't stop me popping out at lunchtime to go and watch. Otherwise the live stream from Sky News provided a welcome distraction from work

I found the appearance of Russell Brand particularly bizarre.

"Tell us Mr Brand, what are you angry about?", asked the eager reporter.

"Well.. I'm just.. here." replied Brand, visibly uncomfortable at the attention.

"But why specifically are you here?"

"Hey I'm just here.... participating mate." (uncomfortable look and silence from Brand)

Pathetic, the guy is a serial publicity seeker who revels in his lothario, bad boy image. He clearly decided that it would improve his image through association, and then when the predictable violence kicked in it would do him no favours and made himself look like an utter fool.

Otherwise though, the real treat was the excuse to nip off early to 'beat the protestors'. They are being contained nicely by the police (fine work by the way chaps), and were rumoured to be 'releasing' them at 5:30pm. Cue the entire office leaving at 5pm. However I'm watching TV now and see them all housed in.

Anyway what has all this really achieved? I'm afraid about as much as the G20 summit will.

Cull Over - But No More Complacency

I have not been writing recently because last week turned out to be quite traumatic at the bank. To everybody's surprise, after the smokes and mirrors that are rumours around these things, they instigated a full-blooded 10%+ cull from Wednesday onwards.

It was brutal, with many colleagues I rated highly and consider friends having fallen victim. Does it make this any more personal or meaningful? Not in the slightest - I have felt fully in touch with the downturn since mid-2007, this just feels like another round. Many people I have known and worked with for years mysteriously disappeared from the global email directory (the surest first sign a 'resource' has been erased). Suddenly all number of mails were bouncing, and then the biggest shock was the immediate dismissal of one of the most productive members of my own group.

With junior trader long since departed, I had long held an assumption that this would be sufficient, or at worse the other chap with a black mark on the list would get a quiet invitation from HR upstairs for a chat. As it turned out, it was nothing of the kind, and shocked everybody to the point where we all sat in silence afterwards - with the exception of an intern who could went off to the toilet, coming back later red faced, having evidently been crying.

I never really felt particularly in danger or worried, perhaps because a part of me yearns for the shove I need to move out of this profession forever. With this round the bank has reduced headcount now by approximately 30%, so should any further cuts be required there is no doubt it will be all into the meat.

Otherwise L has been getting evermore excited by the wedding later this year. I had a weekend of talk about various, tedious aspects of planning, followed by doing my best to be enthused as I was led around the Kings Road like a puppy on a leash, to inspect her in various bikini's ahead of our vacation next week. Actually that part was enjoyable.

I have made one definite decision about the future however: the 8-7 slog that I am currently enduring cannot go on for much longer. It has been observed by many that life is too short, and I don't intend to be one of those who only realises that when it is too late. As such it is time to push on full ahead with my business plan, and I need to stop leaving work pressures as an excuse as you can make anything happen with sufficient will.

The key story that for me in the last week has to be the government's hysterical response to Fred Goodwin's fat pension.

"Not even Abu Qatada at his most unappealing could hope to match the intensity of abuse heaped on The Shred."

I was going to comment on this in some detail, until I happened upon this article by the great Jeff Randall, who sums up my own thoughts on this perfectly. A pathetic, transparent attempt by a discredited government to fuel the public thirst for vengence whilst deflecting attention from the real issues, including those most responsible - the government. They can only spin like this for so long before The Shred stops being the main story.

Fred Goodwin's pension is obscene under any circumstances in my opinion. But were I him and suddenly found myself called by Lord Myners with a zero notice threat, I would have responded in exactly the same way: on principle fight it all the way, and only make a decision like that when not strong-armed or threatened. Should he cave in now, his detractors will say that he only gave money back due to Gordon Brown and his pious preacher of hypocrisy Jacqui Smith - thus handing them an undeserved victory.

Sir Fred has ample opportunity to reflect on his compensation, public feelings and what is the right thing to do. A mark of the man will be seeing what he decides in 6-12mths without any such threats hanging over him.

Political Posturing For The Cameras

The politically self-serving vitriol from politicians of all sides continues on Evil Banker today. With Average Man On The Street convinced that every aspect of his current woes are down to overpaid bankers, it provides politicians with the perfect excuse to continue deflecting their attention from the real questions.

Both Brown and Cameron are continuing to spout populist soundbites, for the primary purpose of further exploiting this to their own advantage while pandering to their support base. Of course that is hardly surprising given that this is what 90% of modern politics is all about.

However the reality is that both political parties can sit there making demands of the banks all they like, but they have less leverage when it comes to negotiations than you might think - not least because the country needs successful banks. Additionally the UK government has no actual stake in Barclays and HSBC, they just borrowed funds. And both will happily give them the two fingers and quietly threaten to rebase abroad should there be any sort of meaningful attack on their competitiveness, such as enforcing salary rates.

Even Sir Fred Goodwin, the former CEO of RBS dragged in front of the camera's for some token contrition today, and who made the biggest mistake of all in his ridiculously overpriced takeoever of ABN Amro, had to point out the truth by saying: "..if bankers felt they were not paid enough, they would leave."

And here lies the crux of this particular issue. Bankers salaries are already falling, and falling fast. Banking is a capitalist system that is a hell of a lot more efficient at setting pay levels than the public sector - take a look at politicians and civil servants. Banks are busy laying off thousands of people, most of whom are not rich, just hard working victims like those in other areas of the economy. The banks are cutting back discretionary bonuses now, and new joiner wage packets on thousands more bankers lucky (or good) enough to find work. In short, the industry is busy doing precisely what is being asked of it in terms of reassessing the worth of its workforce.

Interfering with that process by enforcing lower than current market rate salaries for some banks is a ridiculous idea. All it will do is begin an immediate talent drain from those with salary caps, and increase the competitive advantage of the others. Unless this could be imposed at the industry level, which it cannot, this idea of playing up to populist opinion for the cameras will ultimately damage Britain's two weaker banks even more significantly in the long run.

It's like this other meaningless drivel by Gordon Brown that people should waive bonuses. All well and good Gordon, but how about you lead by example? If we work out how much you have cost the country from just a couple of decisions, I'd say you should pay every penny you ever earn on the lecture circuit once we get the chance to boot you out in two years time.

Let's not forget that Gordon sold off a large part of the country's gold reserves 11 years ago, which is estimated to have cost the country over £5bn. His other decision 11 years ago to abolish tax credits on pension funds, bleeding £5bn a year from pensioners, has lead to an appalling funding deficit, with companies being forced to plug that each year from profits - an effective tax - all while the demographics mean ever more pensioners are needing money.

All I can say is, go right ahead Gordon. You can't touch me, and having just written you a £35,000 cheque for capital gains last year, you can fuck right off if you want to try and tax me further. There's plenty of places in the world I can choose to work, and if you don't see net contributors like me as an asset, then you'll soon find out - sadly it will be to the detriment of Old Blighty.