It was high stress at some of the biggest banks on Wall Street this week as staff were told how big their fabled “number” would be this year and how they would be paid (cash vs. equity).
Many of the titans of the City’s trading floors hoping for big bonuses had their hopes dashed by the oil price collapse and its impact on the bond and credit markets in the last three months of the year. Word on the street, then, is that securities traders’ bonuses will be broadly flat. So, it is to the investment bankers, who have been carrying out the big stock market flotations, fundraisings and mergers and acquisitions, that the biggest pay will go. Although these tailed off towards the end of the year, 2014 was an extremely strong year for deals.