BofA Layoffs?
Heard a few rumors around layoffs in certain IB groups at BofA, but nothing confirmed. Anyone have intel?
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Bump
Confirming layoffs in both product & coverage groups, all director level and above so far from what I’ve heard
My god. After paying them shit. They take them out back for a slaughter. Maybe they got a good severance
Generally getting paid poorly portends layoffs rather than job stability
0
Any idea when happening?
Anyone hear anything about FIG?
Also curious about the FIG damage. There are some deadweights in that group.
So nobody knows anything
Bloodbath in consumer from analyst to MD
Bro why are you speaking in tongues like how many are gone lol
~10 people
does it apply to London or the US?
Consumer teams are having a tough start of the year everywhere
But also keen to hear where this is taking place
London Consumer Team is very thin already. Multiple exits, so they have below 10 A&A at the moment. Would be surprised if any cuts there.
Only heard rumors hear and there. Can't confirm anything yet but wouldn't be surprised
can't imagine working there lmao. analysts there gets worked to their bone only to get shit pay and laid off
You have no idea what you are talking about. Last year analyst there got some of the highest bonus amount out of all BB’s and MM’s
Anybody that disagrees is thinking about associate and up bonuses, analysts get compensated well
So BofA pays like shit and then decides to do layoffs. Hope their entire banking franchise crumbles, greedy fucks
A couple Ds and MDs from every group I heard. Know M&A laid off a couple MDs.
I’m not aware of any VPs or below that were laid off, the guy posting about C&R might be trolling. BofA is known for stubbornly refusing to fire juniors.
This bank sucks… layoffs were long overdue but doing it right after paying street low bonuses is heinous
I mean it’s better than doing it before bonuses
They all probably got close to a donut anyways so immaterial from a monetary standpoint and makes BofA looks better optically. Either way the bank sucks
LN or US?
Heard some were announced yesterday. Are there more throughout this week?
Was the Tech group impacted?
Yes
0
Bump
Any update on associates/VPs?
If they did it before bonuses, that would blow.
They did that in 2023 smh
Heard there were a ton of junior layoffs today as well…
heard about a1 laid off, this is wild
By a1 do you mean associate 1 or analyst 1??
Multiple analyst 1s cut across groups. ~2 per group
analyst 1
Are these performance/attendance related at all? Or just completely random?
Heard atleast 3 associates laid off from one of the larger industry groups
Can’t be performance related as for that there needs to be PIP. Likely, personal preference of seniors or LIFO which is not entirely a rational approach.
Bump, analyst layoffs today
Wonder if any offers to incoming summer analyst or deal member will be affected too?
Substantial number of juniors getting cut… Very unexpected at this level
Unexpected? Half the junior bankers at bofa are incompetent...Sorry but its true
Heard EGRC cut ~30 people. TMT ~20, GIG and C&R ~10. All at the analyst and associate level, including analyst 1s. Not sure about the other groups but assume similar numbers.
Note these weren’t pure RIFs - those spoken to were given the option to either transfer internally to another group or gtfo by a certain date.
All NYC?
Have heard Houston & Chicago as well, but majority NY
Any idea on M&A or other coverage groups?
Was SF impacted?
Any idea what severance was?
Bumping for visibility
I’ve heard that it was across the investment bank today ~250 workers across analyst 1/2, associate 1/2, haven’t heard of VP/DIR cuts, but 1-2 MDs per group as well. Massive cull of the herd today, absolutely brutal and the junior morale across the investment bank is in shambles. Heard they offered 30 days pay if you leave or keep same salary and join an internal FPA group under the CFO. Especially hard for any AN1s going through an external recruiting process - touch to explain that one on the resume.
ooof.
I always wonder why people don’t just take the internal offer and then keep looking. Why do so many prefer the layoff over a stable, albeit less sexy role? Especially as a young person with likely not much savings buffer or a working spouse as a safety net?
Does anyone know if S&T is affected as well?
Are they done with the layoffs or is there another round of junior cuts coming?
Likely done until the summer depending on how this year pans out. Layoffs were pretty deep today.
250 total just today !?
Very tough scene. After not firing juniors for 3+ years management orchestrates a completely unannounced bloodbath.
There were some exceptions, but generally speaking the layoffs were performance driven, or management intended them to be performance driven.
Layoffs were well overdue but it was still rough to see everyone’s faces, morale is rock bottom after street low bonuses the past two years and a mass layoff of juniors. I empathize the most with the analysts - I was highly impressionable at that age and I don’t know how I would have handled getting laid off after just starting my career.
After the annual whining post bonus that half the people don’t do anything or daily DEI bashing or whatever - this is what happens when banks do crack down for performance (and we aren’t even in recession, or maybe we are about to be)
i will laugh next year when the bofa juniors realize cutting more people did not increase the bonus pool.
The bank should lay people off that don’t do anything, don’t get me wrong. It was just odd they did nothing for 3 years then randomly laid off a ton of people with no warning. Most groups lay off a couple juniors per cycle (not 30) and there are clear indications they are not performing well when it happens. This bank can’t do anything right.
So they were not fired but told they have to transfer internally?
Both - they were given a choice
How does this affect incoming SA? Likely lower return offer rates or not necessarily correlated?
I’m curious if they will take back any offers
I work at BofA and have a strong belief they will not fuck the incoming class. Some years were cut in half through this cull, more ppl will leave and not take A2A and personally my group is pretty busy.
As someone who did multiple years of SA staffing back in my junior days, I know that there are typically lower return rates when there are massive layoffs at a firm; however would say odds still remain in your favor still. Banks will always hire at least most of their summer interns for full-time. difference in bad years is that it's 50-60% and it's 70-80% in good years. As a note; one of the worst things to do in banking IMO still has been having to tell kids they didn't get returns, especially when it's sometimes for political reasons in bad years.
But wouldn’t the layoffs make them less bloated and more able to take on the interns they’ve already hired? Or is it more that interns were hired based on the previous group size and now with a reduced headcount they’ll need to scale down the number of full-time offers to reflect that?
Return offer rates might dip slightly but will still be high. During the Covid era, as long as an intern had a pulse and didn’t take a shit on anyone’s desk he/she would get an offer. IMO this layoff cycle signals a change of mentality at the bank where they’ll be more vigilant in scrutinizing poor performance. That being said, I think intern offer rates will still be fine, think 80-90% instead of near 100
BofA Consumer & Retail, aka DEI BECKY Headquarters needs to be shut down. Period.
THEY MAKE GORGEOUS SLIDES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Genuinely curious, can you elaborate? Is it just the dei thing? Thanks
Full of incompetent female MBA associates, the most political group on the street, and terrible deal flow for a lot of people.
It's the definition of what's wrong with Wall Street today.
Confirming that some analysts and associates were also laid off
any news on securitized products?
curious about securitized products as well.
Structured products seem to be safe
Any news on NYC FSG?
That group is dead. Most of the good senior bankers left last year, and the bank doesn’t do any work with sponsors because they don’t lean in on lending (the main thing clients expect from BofA)
Did the main rainmaker go to Lazard?
Would you still consider it to be one of BofA’s best groups? Based on what I’ve heard, it was still one of the most competitive placements and analysts had solid exits. Is your comment deal flow based or the group as a whole?
Any idea on GIG?
Lots of people leaving. Decent deal flow though
Half true. It’s a burning building and folks trying to exit ASAP. Deal flow is pretty weak as well. One MD is saving the group M&A wise. They rely heavily on financing.
I think GIG NYC had around 8 layoffs. Then a couple more ppl quit at the end of the week.
Aside from the layoffs, I think over 20 ppl have left on their own within the past year to other banks from the associate to vice chairman levels.
Everyone who is somewhat competent and not completely risk-averse has left the group over the past year due to very below market pay. The ones who stayed primarily have visa / green card issues or have very minimal deal experience on their resume and can’t leave as easily.
Deal flow is weaker nowadays, lots of pitches. They don’t really have MDs to cover the following sectors anymore either: A&D, E&C, Packaging. Their primary industrial tech bankers also left for PJT last year as well. The group is a shell of what it used to be ~2 years ago.
Can confirm all of this. Essentially everyone in the group was severely underpaid the past couple years, largely due to misplaced bloat in underutilized groups across IB. So the good people slowly got frustrated and left, and the bad ones or the people with visa issues stayed. This dried up the talent pipeline (at all levels)… mix that with the refusal to cull poor performers… and it’s not surprising to see the group in its current state. This is emblematic of what happened at BofA more broadly the past three or so years.
Disaster of a team I heard, they are hemorrhaging talent at all levels. People get worked to the bone, are paid poorly, all while seeing a good chunk of their buddies get fired. Shame because it used to be a good place to be… decent pay and deal flow with a good culture, albeit on the sweatier side.
Saw that a top M&A MD that worked in GIG left for JPM recently. Hearing whispers that another GIG coverage MD that worked super close with this dude may be leaving too.
That guy went to JPM’s middle market group, a step below JPM’s “real” M&A group. But I’m sure he is getting paid way more than what BofA was paying him, so bravo to him for having the balls to leave. Another MD from BofA M&A left last year to go become the head of the JPM middle market M&A group, so it makes sense.
Any more insight into EGRC after making the biggest cuts?
Why would it be any different just because you shaved some crap off the massive chunk of feces? It is still full of the most incompetent bankers, both senior and junior.
Tell us how you really feel
Dare you to say this not anonymously
Anything on HC?
.
?
Any idea how hard TMT was hit
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