Top finance talent still commands huge checks
- Major finance firms continue paying very large sums to secure senior producers and teams. - Recent examples include a reported $20M poach of a 29‑year‑old GS MD, an $11M breakup fee for a hedge‑fund manager, and JPMorgan landing a $1.1B adviser team. - That readiness to pay for proven producers reinforces a selective, evidence-driven talent mindset that often shapes junior hiring priorities. (x.com) (efinancialcareers-norway.com) (reuters.com)
Big finance firms are still writing enormous checks for people who already produce revenue. In London, Millennium is understood to have offered more than $20 million to hire Paulo Costa, the 29-year-old Goldman Sachs trader who became the youngest managing director in Goldman’s 2025 class. Goldman said on November 6, 2025 that it promoted 638 new managing directors, and industry reporting said more than 70% of that class worked in revenue-generating roles. At hedge funds, the bidding can look like merger paperwork. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors is seeking $11 million from Adam Grunfeld after a hiring agreement with the Millennium manager collapsed, and the complaint says that sum was roughly equal to his anticipated signing bonus alone. Banks are paying up too, but often by hiring teams with existing client books. JPMorgan said on April 22 that David Amar and his team, who managed $1.1 billion in client assets at William Blair, joined its wealth management unit in Los Angeles. The same pattern showed up a day earlier in investment banking. Reuters reported on April 22 that JPMorgan hired Kaushik Banerjee, Bank of America’s global head of semiconductor investment banking and electronics, and Homan Milani, its head of Americas internet investment banking, as it keeps expanding technology coverage. Those moves are concentrated around people who can point to fees, assets or trading gains. Reuters said Banerjee advised on transactions including ASML’s $1.4 billion investment in Mistral AI and the $8.2 billion sale of National Instruments to Emerson, while Milani worked on deals for DoorDash, Lyft, Pinterest, Snap and Affirm. Goldman’s own promotion data points the same way. The firm said 638 people were invited to become managing directors as of January 1, 2026, and eFinancialCareers reported that the average newly promoted managing director had spent 12 years at Goldman. That helps explain why junior hiring can feel tighter than senior recruiting. Firms can slow entry-level intake when markets weaken, but they still compete hard for bankers, advisers and portfolio managers who arrive with clients, strategies or a recent deal sheet. The checks are huge because the math is concrete. In 2026, the people getting paid are the ones employers believe can bring revenue with them on day one.
