CITY headhunters claim to have been bombarded with job inquiries by staff of BNP Paribas, the French investment bank, after many of its employees in London and New York were awarded much smaller annual bonuses than they had been given to expect.
Their dissatisfaction reflects a growing change in banks’ attitudes to paying traders. Some BNP staff are understood to have received “doughnuts”, a derisory term meaning no bonus at all.
The bank said: “BNP has a remuneration policy designed to attract and retain staff of the highest quality.”
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Traders at other banks are also unhappy about bonuses after a year of buoyant trading in takeovers and securities.They are victims of a growing practice known as the barbell, where employers award the bulk of their bonus pool to the most profitable employees and to younger traders, aged 26 to 32, seen as the next generation.
Bankers say that this reflects increasing polarisation of pay. Simon Vaughan-Edwards, of Alexander Mann, the headhunting firm, said that the days of “telephone number” pay are over for most City workers.