Private-equity recruiting retreat — Barclays trading rout — Alts gatekeepers

Recruiting for private-equity associates is looking a whole lot different this year. As Reed Alexander and Casey Sullivan reported, private-equity firms and headhunters are backing off from going after young investment bankers in their first few weeks on the job — and setting brand new timelines for when they'll start.

It's a big reversal after years of one-upping to nab top talent out of investment banks.( PE associate recruiting started in mid-September last year, marking its earliest-ever kickoff.) Speaking of recruiting, we've also assembled a database of Wall Street recruiters that you can browse by specialty. You can check it out here: 

We built the first-ever searchable database of the top Wall Street recruiters for banking, hedge funds, and private equity

More below on the hiring track record of Wells Fargo's CEO; a big trading loss at Barclays; what Facebook is paying in rent in its huge new NYC office (and what that says about the ailing leasing market); and a roundup of the gatekeepers who decide which private-markets investments are making their way into the hands of wealth-management clients. 

If you're not yet a newsletter subscriber, you can sign up here to get your daily dose of the stories dominating banking, business, and big deals.

How Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf, who's under fire for his 'limited' Black talent remark, filled the bank's top ranks with white men from his JPMorgan days

Wells Fargo Chief Executive Charlie Scharf apologized on Wednesday for remarks revealed in a Reuters report that showed he believes there is a dearth of Black talent to recruit. 

Scharf has been shaking the bank up with new hires since he joined Wells as CEO in October 2019. Rebecca Ungarino took a look at this unique chance to transform the firm's management team — and how the roles wound up being filled. 

A Barclays trading desk lost more than $60 million this year amid a bloodbath in distressed assets

Barclays' distressed-credit team has had a difficult stretch in 2020, and had lost more than $60 million through mid-year.

That comes as sell-side distressed trading in general has taken a bath amid the upheaval from Covid-19, even as fixed-income trading numbers have been off the charts in aggregate. Alex Morrell revealed what's dragging on performance.

The CEO of Refinitiv says flexible working has boosted productivity and is here to stay at the $27 billion data giant

While many financial firms are still sorting out what their long-term plans are, one of the largest data providers to the Street is fully embracing flexible working. 

In a conversation with Dan DeFrancesco, Refinitiv CEO David Craig said his company has seen a 20-30% increase in productivity on core operational areas since remote work began in the spring, noting: "It's not going back to normal because I think attitudes have been changed."

How much Facebook is paying for its giant new office in New York 

Office landlords are lowering rents and sweetening leasing deals to convince tenants to take space. The concessions show just how hard it is to get company's to jump in on office deals. 

Look no further than Facebook's blockbuster lease at the Farley Building on Manhattan's West Side, where sources say the social media giant was able to secure a 9% discount on the deal. Dan Geiger has all the details. 

Meet the gatekeepers of alternative investments at the largest wealth-management firms

For Wall Street firms with big wealth businesses, an enormous amount of due diligence is required when allowing more exotic investments into the hands of financial advisers' clients.

Rebecca Ungarino identified the executives responsible for overseeing the menu of alternative investments that firms and their advisers can choose from for clients: here's a look at nine people at firm like UBS, Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo shaping who's investing in red-hot private markets.

Banking

• Read the full memo Goldman Sachs just sent announcing a leadership shakeup in its powerhouse M&A group
• Snowflake's mega IPO resulted in more than $100 million in fees for investment banks. Here's how much Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and 8 other banks each made.

Real estate

• Demand for lab space is booming, and real-estate giant JLL just hired a new life-sciences expert to lean into the opportunity
• Giant mall owner Brookfield Properties is ditching its worst locations and redeveloping what's left into 'mini cities' that blend shopping with residential space

Hedge funds

• Nasdaq follows the NYSE in publicly opposing SEC's proposal to drastically limit visibility into money managers' investments
• Meet the former Goldman Sachs MD who has an ambitious plan to boost the number of women overseeing funds at big money managers

Fintech

• A fintech that pairs small-business borrowers with lenders just launched data-driven matchmaking aimed at reinvigorating the space after a pandemic-induced slump
• A compliance startup that helps early-stage companies close deals with incumbents just raised a $10 million Series A from Canapi Ventures, Bain Capital, and NYCA
• Here's the 10-slide pitch deck that payments startup dLocal used to raise $200 million from General Atlantic at a $1.2 billion valuation

Legal news

• Here's how Columbia, NYU, and 4 other law schools are reworking high-stakes job interviews for students this year
• New York's top judge is sticking with an online bar exam even as complaints of tech issues mount and other states let law grads skip the test and still practice law

Professional services

• PwC's inclusion chief lays out why the Big 4 firm revealed its diversity stats in 'uncomfortable' detail and how other companies should follow suit
• Accenture execs say that the firm's consulting and strategy work should bounce back from a pandemic-induced slump within a year

Odd lots

• A former Esquire exec is suing Hearst, alleging age and gender discrimination.
• 'It's like being in a sci-fi nightmare film': Whole Foods employees say Amazon workers are crowding stores, ignoring virus protocols, and hounding them for help as online orders surge