Private equity firms are still aggressively poaching talented young bankers from Wall Street despite indications last year that they would slow down, according to a top banker at Citigroup Inc.
“I’m hopeful that it slows down and gets delayed,” David Friedland, the bank’s co-head of North America investment banking, said in a Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday. “I’m not sure that we have seen that much of it.”
Earlier this week, Citigroup announced that it would cut its analyst program from three years to two, accelerating promotions and higher pay for its junior bankers. The shift is designed to attract and retain top employees, many of whom snatch higher-paid offers from buyout firms and hedge funds after a short period in banking.
Read More: Citi Speeds Junior Bankers’ Ascent in Fight With Private Equity
Last year, some top private-markets firms said they would slow their hiring cycle, which had started progressively earlier in young candidates’ careers. Apollo Global Management Inc., for one, told some of its prospective investment-banking candidates that year that it wouldn’t interview or extend offers to them for jobs starting in 2027.
Banks including Citi, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley also introduced restrictions on their junior bankers, requiring disclosure if they’d accepted jobs elsewhere. JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it would fire any analyst who accepted a new job offer within 18 months of arriving at the firm.
“I do think how early in somebody’s career other firms, whether it’s private equity or elsewhere, start to recruit the younger bankers — it’s unfortunate and it’s unfair to them,” Friedland said. The executive said the shift has provoked discussion across young financiers, adding that his 23-year-old son’s group chats lit up this week with his finance friends exchanging links about Citigroup’s news.
“We all have top talent and top talent has opportunities,” Friedland said. “We are just trying to make it — if people want to — more interesting, more rewarding to stay.”