Morgan Stanley brings back slavery in Budapest, 1.5K for M&A NY work

WSJ just dropped a pretty insane story on Morgan Stanley’s Budapest investment banking program.

Morgan Stanley built a junior investment banking analyst program in Budapest where analysts were allegedly doing same M&A work as New York and London, and allegedly, didn't even have a license to do the work, so Morgan Stanley did it illegally? 

Except instead of London/NY pay, the first analysts were reportedly taking home around €1,500/month.

And instead of local Budapest hours, some analysts supporting New York were allegedly working from around 1pm to 7am Budapest time.

So basically:

Wall Street work.
New York hours (inverted schedule working overnight every day).
Budapest pay (doesn't even look competitive for Budapest prices...).
No analyst upside. No recognition.

Slavery is back.

https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/morgan-stanleys-investment-banking-…

23 Comments
 

€1,500/month is a normal salary for entry level finance (incl. high finance) in Eastern Europe. For working hours, I'm assuming they don't expect you to be at the office, so ppl prolly move to like Portugal and work normal hours while chilling on the beach in the mornings. There's definitely upside and recognition, cause they get to put MS on their resume - there are probably not many better opportunities in Budapest to strengthen your CV.

 

Kevin25:

€1,500/month is a normal salary for entry level finance (incl. high finance) in Eastern Europe. For working hours, I'm assuming they don't expect you to be at the office, so ppl prolly move to like Portugal and work normal hours while chilling on the beach in the mornings. There's definitely upside and recognition, cause they get to put MS on their resume - there are probably not many better opportunities in Budapest to strengthen your CV.


Did you even read the article

 

I grew up in Eastern Europe and worked in a top Consulting shop (my clients were some of the largest companies in the world) after college in a more expensive city than Budapest for ~$1000/month, and my working hours were 80-100. My rent for 1bd apt was ~$900, so my family helped me buy groceries.

That experience helped me to get in a top school in US, and now I make $200k+ working less than 40h/week.

 

Okay this is rare. There doesn't seem to be any reference to Investment Banking in Budapest as per their website:

"The office is located on the Danube in the state-of-the-art Millennium City Centre.  Our more than 2,300 employees provide essential support across a variety of services including Finance, Technology, Quant Solutions, Firm Risk Management, Business Control Unit, Internal Audit, Legal and Compliance, Inclusive Ventures Lab, Firmwide Marketing, Commercial Contract Management, and Global Sustainable Finance."

https://www.morganstanley.com/people/people-budapest

They also mention 6 divisions, and Investment Banking is not one of them: Technology, Finance (valuation, expense management, Controllers & wealth), Strats & Modelling, Risk Management, Financial Resources & Strategy and Internal Audit. Where is Investment Banking?

https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices/budapest-division

 
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