Straight to Hell

by John LeFevre

  It wasn’t simply that the hiring of Princelings was good for winning future business; there were times when we would explicitly draw from these resources. “Hey, you know we’re pitching X bank next week for a bond deal. Does your dad know the CEO? Maybe he can remind them that you’d be on the deal team if we’re mandated.”

  There were even times when we weren’t above asking one of these analysts to help us out on a deal. For one notable Indonesian high-yield bond, we were so close to getting it over the line that, having exhausted all institutional avenues, we decided any little bump in interest from retail investors via the private banks could make a difference. “Hey, why don’t you show this deal to your dad? It’s got an 11% coupon.”

  As far as Princelings go, Justin is a great guy. Personally, he’s very likable. Professionally, he’s probably the best of a bad bunch. And after our adventure at the Singapore conference, I decide that he’s got potential—so I offer him the opportunity to step out of the analyst rotation and join my desk full-time. Of course he jumps at the chance.

  I don’t care about the silk glove treatment that these kids expect; if Justin’s going to join my desk, he’s going to have to toughen up fast. The syndicate desk is a balancing act between managing the demands of investment bankers and their corporate clients and the needs of salespeople and their buy-side clients.

  Upon seeing Justin fumble over the difference between a bid and an offer when tasked with the simple assignment of updating some trading levels, Andy decides that he is still too green and unsure of himself for the trading floor. “Dude, don’t send your boy back over here to waste my time until he knows what the fuck he’s doing.”

  So we devise a plan to help give Justin some confidence and toughen him up for the trading floor.

  Andy taps him on the shoulder. “You learned PowerPoint and Excel in training, right?”

  Justin nods unassertively.

  “Good. I want you to make a slide for me. Do you think you can handle that?”

  Once again, Justin gives a tentative nod.

  “I want you to take a survey of the guys on the trading floor—only the guys. Then I want you to chart it up, make a one-page PowerPoint summarizing the results, and then present it to us.

  “It’ll be good for you. It’s a great chance for you to walk around the trading floor and introduce yourself to everybody. Trust me, when this is over, everyone will know who you are. And they’ll know, unequivocally, that you can be trusted.

  “Here’s the survey question you are going to answer for me: There are five women in the credit sales team. Rank them in the order of most fuckable.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Finally, Justin says something with a hint of conviction.

  “I’m dead fucking serious. You’ll present your results at six p.m. today. Ticktock, motherfucker.” With that, Andy walks away.

  I assure Justin that this no joke and that if he expects to ever get any assistance from the trading desk in the future, he should probably comply with the request. It’s also my job as his mentor to help get him started with some advice. “Try not to write anything down, but if you have to, just don’t use real names; you don’t want to get in trouble or cause unnecessary offense.”

  I bring Justin up to speed on the importance of nicknames on the trading floor. Computer screens are visible to anyone with an inquisitive eye. Phone lines are shared. Bloomberg ­messages are often auto-forwarded. Chat rooms are monitored. We have nicknames for everybody, unless they are completely irrelevant. Each of the five women he has been tasked with ranking has a nickname—Roo, Fudd, Wally, Corky, and BF.

  Roo has a FUPA that a marsupial would be envious of, hence the derivative of kangaroo. Fudd has body odor issues. If Elmer Fudd were a real person, I imagine he’d smell like her. Wally has a terrific and playful personality, but as her boss says, “She’s about ten weeks of dedicated anorexia away from being hot.” Hence, she reminds us of a walrus. Corky has an extra chromosome, and BF is your classic Butter Face.

  Despite his initial reluctance, I can tell that Justin feels somewhat privileged that we have decided to share this information with him. And with that, he dutifully and discreetly sets off on his way.

  It takes him all afternoon, but he completes the assignment as directed—much to our amusement. We watch him go row by row, introduce himself, and then turn completely scarlet as he poses the question. This of course evokes a wide array of reactions from the participants, ranging from “Get the fuck out of here” to “Dude, who put you up to this?” Only in a few cases did he get a hostile or negative response: “This is not funny or appropriate.” We were careful to steer him away from the other pussies.

  Despite not every person being willing to participate, Justin still manages to get enough data points for the results to be statistically meaningful. He then proceeds to chart up his findings in Excel and then format it into a succinct PowerPoint slide.

  Just after 6 p.m., as things are winding down and people are starting to head home, Andy parades over with his cronies from the trading desk, two hedge fund sales guys, and even a few random survey participants.

  The head of the hedge fund sales desk is seemingly apprehensive. “Okay, this is ridiculous. Someone could get fired for this. We can’t do shit like this in the middle of the fucking trading floor.” Before anyone can protest, he continues. “Justin, print out a few copies, and let’s take this into the conference room so that we can enjoy it.”

  Not only is Justin’s presentation excellent, we’re all quite surprised by the results. Roo, who was ranked fourth on my list, has emerged as the clear winner, receiving nearly double the votes as the runner-up, Wally. Trying to put Justin on the spot, Andy asks him to explain how it’s even possible for Roo to have been voted so much more fuckable than everyone else.

  Once again, Justin blows us away with his analysis. “That’s an excellent question, and frankly, it surprised me as well. So I decided to follow up with each person who listed Roo first. Hence, you will see the asterisk next to her ranking. It seems that quite a few people listed her first with an assumed stipulation that it’s strictly a hate fuck and in no way meant as a compliment. If I make an adjustment for this dynamic, we end up in a statistical tie between Roo and Wally.”

  The other fascinating tidbit to emerge from this study is that 100% of the people surveyed have Corky listed as dead last. As such, from that moment on, she is referred to simply as Five. After all, a nickname that stems from a Down syndrome reference is totally inappropriate.

  Andy’s equally impressed. “Beers on me for a job well done.” He hands the presentations back to Justin. “Now, shred these fuckers and let’s get out of here.”

  With that, we give a Justin a small round of applause; he’s unable to hide his elation. I feel like a proud father; the torch had been passed.

  The First Day

  of School

  One of our key hedge fund sales guys has just resigned to join a direct competitor of ours. Considering he’s been the driving force in placing the majority of my bond deals, it’s a crushing blow for my business. But as a friend, I’m very happy for him.

  Not only am I happy for him, I’m also very proud of him. I remember vividly when he first joined the sales desk in Hong Kong. He arrived in Asia, MBA and CFA in hand, not only because he saw career opportunity, but because he has a fetish for Asian girls.

  At first, he was overeager to the point of being annoying, answering every line before the end of the first ring. But we saw potential in him. He just needed to be toughened up a little bit. After some careful planning, scripting, and coordination, we decided to tee him up for one of the great trading-floor prank calls of all time.

  It’s not just about pranking him; it’s also a test to see how he handles himself under pressure, and essentially if he’s ready for greater responsibilities beyond simply answering phones and getting c
offee.

  A hedge fund manager, who runs a multibillion-dollar credit fund and is one of our biggest clients, calls in to the sales desk. He’s in on it, of course, and has already been given a script I outlined for him. The rest of us are listening on mute from our respective dealerboards.

  One ring in: “Citi. This is Charlie.”

  The client is curt and intimidating, not a stretch role for him to play. “I need Lipton.” Dennis Lipton is Charlie’s direct boss. Of course he’s off the desk because he’s crouched over next to me, hiding behind a wall of screens, listening in on the call.

  “I’m sorry. He’s off the desk. May I ask who’s . . . can I help with something?” Charlie is already tripping over himself.

  “You know who the fuck this is. This is [intentionally inaudible].”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. Whom may I ask is speaking?” Charlie again exudes reticence, despite the confident, but still grammatically incorrect, emphasis of the word “whom.”

  Sensing the weakness, the client turns up the heat. “Dude. It’s David motherfucking Lim, only your biggest fucking customer. Listen, I need a firm offer on Hutch 33s.” This means that he is looking to buy some Hutchison Whampoa bonds maturing in 2033. “Can you help me or do I need to call Deutsche?”

  In theory, this should be like taking an order at ­McDonald’s—not that complicated. All Charlie has to do is get the pertinent information and communicate it to the trading desk, and if the price is right, they’ll execute the trade; it’s simply a function of coordinating the dialogue. Charlie gets a little excited at the prospect of executing his first trade. He composes himself, stands up, and shouts across to our head of trading. “Hey, Joel, where would you offer Hutch 33s for ?”

  Of course, he fails to inquire as to the size and neglects to tell the trader he needs a firm (tradable) price. Normally, a trader would take his wheels off for being so sloppy. But our trader is also in on the joke, so he quotes Charlie an offer, which is then immediately relayed back to the client.

  “Okay. Done. I’ll sell you thirty million there. Send me a ticket.” Click.

  We can feel Charlie standing there, trying to process everything that has just happened, thinking, Okay, a client asked for a firm offer. That means he wants to buy. But when I quoted him the spread, he told me he was selling. So I guess we just bought $30 million bonds from him. But if we bought from him, then shouldn’t I have given him a bid instead of an offer? But he said he wanted an offer. Oh well, I have to assume that the client knows what he’s doing.

  Charlie shouts back across to the head trader. “Hey, Joel, you bought $30 million Hutch 33s from at that spread.”

  “No I fucking didn’t.” Then he goes back to doing whatever he had been pretending to do, leaving Charlie standing there staring blankly, without a clue as to what he should say or do next.

  After a few painful seconds, Joel looks back up at Charlie. “First of all, fucktard, you just asked me for an indication only. But more important, you asked me for an offer, not a fucking bid. And certainly not a firm bid for $30 million . . . What’s your name again, and where the fuck is Lipton?”

  On cue, Lipton casually walks back over to the desk. “Hey, man, I miss anything?”

  Charlie, visibly flustered, relays everything that has just happened. This is a nightmare situation for a new sales guy—­making a terrible first impression with the head of credit trading and potentially fucking up a trade with your boss’s biggest client. Lipton, playing the part of supportive boss and mentor, remains calm. “No big deal. So just call him back and clarify what he wants to do. He’s cool.”

  Based on the length of time it takes Charlie to nervously retrieve the client’s phone number from his Bloomberg header and dial it, we already know this isn’t going to end well.

  “Hey, David, this is Charlie.”

  “Who?”

  Charlie attempts to explain the mix-up, that David had asked for an offer, but that if he wanted to sell bonds, he’d be happy to now quote him a firm bid price.

  David just starts screaming at him. Meanwhile, I’m three rows over, listening in, with my tie rolled up and stuffed in my mouth just to keep from laughing.

  “Fuck you. Who the fuck are you to tell me I made a mistake? I told you I needed a firm bid, not a fucking offer. Are you fucking retarded? You own ’em, sucka.” Click.

  Poor Charlie, he’s drowning. But Lipton insists that he call back.

  “Dude, don’t call me again. Send me a fucking ticket for the $30 million I sold you, at the level you quoted me, or I’ll never fucking trade with you again.”

  Lipton sticks to the script. “Fuck, man. What did you do? This is my number one account. If he puts us in the box for this, I’m fucked.”

  Now Charlie’s head is spinning. He’s starting to question his own memory of the events to the point where he now thinks that he might have been completely at fault.

  “Hey, Joel, I guess I screwed up. Is there anything—”

  “Are you fucking stupid? Are you about to ask me to buy $30 million of thirty-year paper at the offered side of the market?”

  Between Lipton’s and Joel’s yelling at him, the entire trading floor is just staring at him thinking, Holy shit. The new kid must be fucking incompetent.

  There’s blood in the water. Charlie’s voice is cracking; his eyes are welling up with tears. So naturally, Joel keeps pushing and starts grilling him on the difference between “bid” and “offer” and asking him to calculate how much money he just lost the firm if they have to honor the trade. When Charlie’s unable to do the bond math in his head, Joel yells at him even more. “Can you even spell the word ‘duration’?”

  If it were me, I’d just say, “Fuck this, pull the tapes.” But when you’re new to the trading floor, it just doesn’t occur to you that all the lines are recorded.

  Finally, Lipton says, “Look, just go downstairs, get some air, and take a walk and think about what you did. I’ll call David back and try to sort this out. If he doesn’t let you off the hook, the trading desk is going to take a $400,000 hit, and they’re going to hate you for a long fucking time. Do you understand that?”

  Thirty minutes later, Charlie comes back, still looking sullen and sickly. We give him a small standing ovation. He is so shell-shocked that he is unable to comprehend how and why we would even do such a thing to him. “Wait, so the client was in on it too? I don’t understand.”

  As things settle down, Charlie admits that he came very close to never coming back upstairs and just calling in and quitting out of shame on the spot. That night, I take him out and we get blackout wasted, and we’ve been good friends ever since.

  He’s come a long way since that memorable day. Now he’s leaving, heading over to a clean slate and a seven-figure guarantee, with three months’ gardening leave—a legally required paid vacation to prevent conflicts of interest or sensitive information from passing from one bank to another.

  The next three months breeze by for him in a drunken haze. I do my best to keep up. On the last day before he starts the new job, we meet up and decide to make it a lazy Sunday of brunch followed by some healthy day drinking. We’re more aggressive than usual, ordering drinks two at a time. Charlie’s still clinging on to the last days of summer; he’s trying not to accept that sinking feeling—the reality of going back to school.

  Six hours into our brunch, we still haven’t left our table. That’s when I remember that it’s the day of my on-again, off-again girlfriend’s birthday party barbecue. I had been invited, probably because the Warden knows I give amazing gifts. Since we’re currently on a nasty break, sober me had zero intention of showing up, but all of a sudden it seems like a hilarious idea for drunk me to attend with Charlie as my date.

  As expected, the barbecue is almost entirely investment bankers and their tai tai wives. It’s what we’d call a ski co
nference, everybody just standing around jerking each other off, as in the same hand motion you make pushing yourself with the ski poles. The conversation is tedious. It revolves around new yoga studios, “NOBU versus Zuma? Discuss!”, a ranking of the best airport lounges in the region, a review of the latest Aman resort, and the controversy over the new herringbone seat configuration on Cathay Pacific’s business class.

  I want to kill myself, but it helps that Charlie and I are shit-faced.

  Somehow, I get cornered by Becky, the wife of a mid-ranking, harmless equity syndicate banker. “So, who are you reading?”

  “Excuse me?” It’s not just that I am hammered; I heard her. I just want to hear her say that one more time.

  “Who are you reading?” And then before I can even say a word, she keeps going. “I just finished Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money, and while I think stylistically, it’s similar to his earlier work, I continue to be amazed by his insight, given that he has the perspective of both a historian and an economist.”

  Now I know why the jerk-off hand motion was invented. While she’s talking, I’m making eye contact with Charlie, using my tongue to visibly molest the inside of my cheek. With that masterfully insightful comment, she stops and stares at me, letting me know it’s my turn to try to impress her. Just as I am about to call her a pretentious cunt, Charlie pulls me back. “Okay, I think it’s time for us to leave.”

  With that, we catch a taxi down to Lan Kwai Fong. The beautiful thing about Hong Kong, and LKF in particular, is that it’s so diverse and transient that every night is Friday night for somebody—even on a Sunday. There are always people out, and there’s always an excuse to be out. We make our way to Lux, a bar midway down the hill and right in the middle of the action.