While Aso bonuses were awful, this seemed to be the case for VPs and up too. Felt like they just didn’t protect the juniors vs. message “leave” (except for those that got like 0-10k.
They had layoffs last week for VPs and Directors, but, will there be a junior RIF?
As a side, when do we expect all of these bank layoffs to end?
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Almost 100% that they will lay juniors off in the future. Don’t think layoffs are stopping across the banks anytime soon.
Seem like BofA is looking for people to leave on their own, which probably won’t happen. So they’ll be forced to take action.
I would guess sometime after Q1 and before Interns arrive. Don’t want to layoff juniors a week before when prospects are arriving.
That makes sense. You really don’t think people in coverage who are working late hours are going to quit after 0-20k bonuses?
I am sure that they would love to leave but probably can’t find anything in the next 3 months id guess
The bottom performers can’t leave because there’s nowhere to go, and they don’t have enough deal experience/aren’t competent enough to leave even if they tried. A lot of them are also unpopular on the floor so they don’t have a lot of work. Why not cruise and collect a $200k base?
Didn't they lay off some folk fairly recently?
VP & Director level
Did they have any layoffs in lev fin or ECM that you know of?
Theyre definitely going to
Are you at BofA? Any guess as to when?
I doubt they cut anyone soon, if they were going to, they would have during the small RIF last week. They probably hope for some attrition post bonus and then could maybe look at it this summer. Not a strong appetite for it now though.
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No, I don’t think so. The bank is certainly signaling some juniors to move on, and some will, but at the end of the day they need some junior staff to actually be around to do the work. BofA is a huge place and they are more likely to reassign grossly underperforming juniors into “internal consulting” roles outside of the IB to help with random projects. I know for a fact they did this last year instead of firing people.
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At least on the analyst level, hard to imagine they’ll lay off anyone there. Second years are up for promotion. The ones they don’t want to keep simply won’t get the promotion and leave to another role in the bank (like the poster says above) or leave the bank altogether at the end of June. No need to lay off and pay severance, and it’s probably better to keep a few bodies to work on stuff until promotion time.
For first years, after the second years are promoted or let go, they’ll be the ones that take on the grunt work cuz the new analysts won’t know much.
Agree - analysts are safe based on my experience. A few associates need to be fired.
We can only all wish for it
If the market doesn’t get better, my take is they will finally lay off A&As. You can only give shitty bonuses and move people internally for so long. Plus, severance at BofA is only 2 weeks per year of service. That’s 2 months for most A&As and much cheaper than holding on to an expensive, underperforming Associate who doesn’t contribute a ton. Would be up or out, so the underperformers in a promo year will be at highest risk. Who knows though.
I heard it was 3 weeks per week. This could be wishful thinking on my end, but I suspect that HR and higher ups have decided they’d give more than 2-3 weeks per year. Otherwise why even bother giving the opportunity for natural attrition (the shitty bonuses) and not just lay off that Monday when they were laying off senior.
Think it may be a bad PR / reputation look to lay off a bunch of 22-28 year olds who are worked to the bone and give them 2-4 weeks of severance…
Jus my two cents
One of my buddies who got RIFed said its 2 weeks per year.
This is BofA’s most expensive PR campaign lol
Got confirmation from senior bankers that BofA only RIF senior bankers (vp+) and “lay off” juniors by not offering promotion.
My take is that if things get worse, we might see RIF in associates because there are just sooo many associates in each group, though unlikely. Def not for analysts.
There were associate RIFs pre-Covid… 1 or 2 every year to thin the herd. They stopped doing this during covid because the market was ripping and for PR reasons. Wonder if they’ll start again
Heard apac will do a round on juniors soon, any intel? Is it just apac given deal drought in China?
They seem to be hiring at least in some verticals though?
Oh really, in APAC or US?
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