Morning Coffee: 56 year-old private equity guy wants 22 year-olds to know they can make money too. Paris bankers are having second thoughts

Apocryphally, John Paul Getty’s advice to anyone who asked him for the secret of his success was “Go to bed early. Rise early. Read improving books. Strike oil”. The equivalent advice from Blackstone’s Jon Gray might be that developing a good work ethic and a broad perspective are important, but that it also helps to start your career at a small investment partnership that’s going to grow into an industry giant during a generational bull market.

💥Follow us on WhatsApp for news alerts.💥

Luckily for the analyst class at Blackstone (who are already very lucky; only 0.1% of those who applied got through this year), Gray is more helpful and less sarcastic than Getty was, and he has passed on some actually useful advice.  Implicitly recognising that the easy money has been made in both leveraged buyouts and real estate, he tells Generation Z that if they want to succeed, they need to be entrepreneurial.

That’s not “entrepreneurial” in the sense of “leaving to start your own company”, of course; Gray’s actual words were that the analysts should ““Think about wherever you’re working, whatever capacity in our firm or elsewhere, how you can be an agent of change, how you can make things better, how you can serve clients in a better way”. But it amounts to the same thing; as he points out, Blackstone has a very good track record of noticing new opportunities to pivot into new business lines, and it’s able to put a serious amount of capital behind a new idea.

Of course, when you think about it “have new ideas to make things better”, on its own, isn’t necessary much more practical than “strike oil”.  But Gray’s purpose isn’t really to give practical advice.  The young people who have come through Blackstone’s selection process will not have done so without having demonstrated their ability to think creatively.  What they need is permission to speak up and the incentive to do things better.

Gray isn't bad at talking to the younger, poorer, generations.  He gave another commencement speech a few years back, when he emphasised the importance of continuing to enjoy your work, and not losing the sense of excitement that you feel as a young banker when you’re working on important deals, meeting interesting people and seeing extraordinary places.  That's good advice, and will always make your life better, although the question can sometimes be how to maintain the sense of excitement amidst the hard work that accompanies these things. 

Elsewhere, once upon a time in the aftermath of Brexit, the French government was keen to attract bankers to Paris, to build the city’s financial hub to be the centre of Euroland. As part of that strategy, they offered extremely generous “impatriation” tax breaks for bankers who relocated, some of which lasted for as long as eight years.

However, even the longest tax holiday eventually comes to an end, and some of the bankers who came across from London are now beginning to realise that 2027 will be the year in which they are asked to pay a full ration of French tax.  Some of them are beginning discussions with their employers about increasing their compensation, and some of them are apparently just wondering if it’s time to move again.

The urge to move is being reinforced by perceptions of political instability.  Having seen what right-wing populism can do in the UK, some bankers are not enthusiastic about the prospect of Marine Le Pen as front-runner to be the next President of France.  As well as the constant stream of global bankers and traders heading for Dubai, the Italian government is offering its own impatriation deals to help build up finance in Milan.

At present, it seems to be more talk than action, and in order to move, you usually need a job to go to. But the French authorities probably ought to be a little bit worried.  As they know from their own efforts to steal the franchise from London, even the most formidable of financial centres is only ever a few bad years away from losing its crown.

Meanwhile …

Clifford Chance has lost ten partners in its US practice so far this year, but managing partner Charles Adams isn’t phased.  He says that it’s “one of the most mobile markets ever”, and “part of doing business” – Clifford Chance has made fifteen lateral hires itself. (Financial News)

Emma Taylor is going from Barclays to Morgan Stanley, from one co-head of internet investment banking to another. (Reuters)

Michael Herzog’s dispute with Davidson Kemper continues, with a lot of allegations made against CIO Tony Yosseloff in a whistleblower suit filed in London.  The company deny them all and say it’s all about money.  (Bloomberg)

Anyone who remembers the Credit Suisse management crisis which started with an argument over a garden hedge will know that when the Hamptons lights up with complaints about leaf blowers, we should take it seriously. (Business Insider)

After a very short honeymoon period, Bill Ackman is dissatisfied with Zohran Mamdani and is apparently considering leveraging the popularity of his long tweets into a mayoral run himself. (NY Post)

Everyone groans and rolls their eyes when they hear about corporate retreats, but could they be made better by adding a crafts table or a sack race?  What do you mean “no”? Apparently the advantage of party games is that they are less likely to lead to inappropriate behaviour than an open bar, and it’s a surprisingly bonding experience for employees to commiserate about how lame they are.  (WSJ)

Jes Staley apparently faced some quite tough questioning in his appearance at the House Oversight Committee (Yahoo)

The company that manufactures “deal toys” (little souvenirs sometimes presented by bankers to clients to commemorate M&A transactions) says that they are increasingly being given weird and not always physically possible designs by analysts who have used AI to come up with something rather than trusting the designer. (Business Insider)

 Follow me on X. Follow me on LinkedIn. 

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 editortips@efinancialcareers.com. 

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.