Favorite Company Swag Received?
I'm a big fan of pop-sockets and socks. What are some of the company swag you've kept a collection of?
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A nice polo shirt.
Polos are too preppy, I’m partial to HANDCUFFS and WHIPS and ANAL BEADS myself
polo shirts, pens, high end umbrella, tie
Polo shirt, gym bags, golf hat, water bottle.
vaseline from my MD
Probably my Barclays umbrella. I see too many idiots wearing their sleeveless vest in the summer time when it's 90 degrees out and they're sweating their ass off in the subway. Stupidest thing I've ever saw. Majority of the traders never even wear a vest outside the office and leave it on their chair. Ever since then, I don't ever wear it because I'm not a poser. I'll stick with the umbrella.
Aren't all vests inherently sleeveless?
Bear Stearns drawstring bag from Feb 2008.
Branded hand sanitizer
A bonus check with the company name on it
A pencil from Merrill Lynch (yes, I'm that old) which said: "Made from recycled money" They went bust a few month after that...
Mouse from Deloitte
>->Mouse
>->Deloitte
of course...
The Enron ethics cube. No, not a joke. This shwag is drenched in so much irony that it has become a Wall Street collectible with a street value of $300.
Over the years I've had some awesome wholesalers, and employers that were pretty generous with gifts. By price range under $50 Pictet gave me a muti usb fastcharger that I use daily and really enjoy. The last 10 years of my golf balls have been provided by JH, Ivy, Blackrock, MFS, American Funds, Franklin Templeton, etc. Advantus Capital gives really nice Nike Dri-fit baseball caps
$50-$100: I personally use the John Hancock Umbrella I got several years ago all the time, good quality. Blackrock and Ivy Funds have nice Nike golf polos/pullovers and cycling jerseys that I use often.
$100-250: Advantus gave me a Nike Golf Bag that is awesome. Mackenzie Investments provided my Oddessy 2 Ball putter.
$250-1000: Not the normal wholesaler swag, but Ivy funds provided me some awesome gifts while I was there. For my first municipal underwriting deal I got an engraved Mont Blanc fountain pen and mechanical pencil set. After our acquisition of Hostress all of our team members received a box of twinkies with a Yellow Face Tissot Quartz watch. But my favorite gift by far was following our venture into Formula 1 which we received engraved Tag Heuer Formula 1 watches with the Ivy & F1 logos on the face.
$+++: Again not swag technically, but certainly appreciated are fund company covered trips! These were by far my favorites, and are separated by if they passed the tax bill on to me... Not Taxed: 1. Weekend at Four Seasons Golf Resort Scottsdale, AZ with travel and all expenses courtesy of W&R/Ivy for leadership team appreciation 2. Week in Boston w/ John Hancock. "Due Diligence" in reality just a great week of drinking with a couple of buddies and our wholesaler. 3. Week in Quebec w/ Mackenzie. "Due Diligence" for the F1 venture at the Canadian GP. 4. Week in Austin w/ Ivy. "Due Diligence" for F1 venture at U.S. GP.
Taxed:
Honestly every trip I ever went on with Edward Jones was amazing, and I'm glad I took them over the cash bonus payouts, but if you qualified you could take 2 trips annually and they were valued at $5k each or 1 annually at $10k. Over the years I went to Hawaii, Mexico, France, Africa, but the best one by a fucking mile was in 2013 myself and several other advisors went to the BVI where we had a mooring yacht for just our group and a captain that took us anywhere we wanted to go, and our product partner, our Blackrock External, covered anything that wasn't included with the trip. Regardless of the tax bill at the end of the year all of the trips were awesome, but that one I actually priced to do again on my own dime a few years later and it would have costed about per couple 25k to repeat it with the same group size. Seriously Edward Jones does that shit right.....
I know this post ran a little long, but if it had a point to it, it would be that while AM specifically Financial Advisors/Planners don't generally take home what IB/PE guys do we do get some nice perks occasionally. Not saying the grass is greener by any means, but I sure do love free stuff!
As corny as this sounds, throughout my entire undergrad thus far I always stared in awe at the “banker bags” on the subway, and getting one at the start of my internship was a real ‘I made it’ moment. My jaw practically hit the floor when I opened the box it was sent in. They’re also a lot more poorly constructed than I thought, having loose threads here and there and the zipper feeling somewhat flimsy, but it was still such a powerful feeling to officially own one. Please don’t roast me — I’m just excited to be here.