Morning Coffee: Morgan Stanley "dork" banker allowed to avoid tedious meetings. Goldman Sachs tax questions

We have written about ex-Morgan Stanley technology banker Michael Grimes on these pages before, but now that he's become head of Donald Trump's investment accelerator, Grimes is back in the news again. So too are details of his special dispensations at Morgan Stanley.

Who is your Ideal Employer in finance? 💥 Answer our survey for a chance to win $1k

Although Grimes enjoys firing off interview questions like "What’s four to the fourth power?’,” it seems that he's not your average investment banker. He is "dorky" a friend tells the Wall Street Journal. He has a background in computer engineering and could have been a coder were he not a banker; Google's former CEO Larry Page was reportedly aghast that Grimes chose a banking career instead.

Grimes worked for Morgan Stanley for three decades before he left to join the new Trump administration earlier this year. The WSJ says that it would be standard for other senior Morgan Stanley bankers in his position at the bank to sit on management committees and participate in firmwide strategy sessions. Grimes, however, managed to avoid these structures and their many meetings and was permitted simply to get on with being technology banker and bringing in IPO mandates. His success in doing so undoubtedly facilitated his special treatment. 

Now, though, Grimes is running the 'U.S. Investment Accelerator,' and is charged with providing a "white glove" service to companies investing $1bn in the US. This may not be dissimilar to the white shoe banking going on at Morgan Stanley, but it does seem to imply strategy meetings. Grimes may come late to the world of post-it notes and blue sky thinking.

Separately, Richard Gnodde is leaving Goldman Sachs in London and going to Goldman Sachs in Milan, and CityAm says it's because he doesn't want to pay tax. 

Gnodde has been in London since 1987, but is South African by birth. His wife, a children's book author, is South African too. It's not clear how much he earns now at Goldman Sachs, but seven years ago he was earning £18m. On a PAYE basis, that would imply a tax bill of £8m, which - as Merryn Somerset Webb pointed out, is more than 1,000 people earning £50k contribute in tax to UK government coffers. 

Losing that would be a shame. Except that it seems that Gnodde benefitted from being a non dom and was paying an annual tax charge of £60k on foreign income alongside standard tax on his UK income. Now that the UK government is doing away with non-doms, Gnodde is losing out and so is moving to Milan where some fine tax breaks still exist. 

The question, then, is whether Gnodde managed to wangle a lot of his Goldman Sachs income as payments for work done outside the UK, and if so whether other Goldman Sachs bankers in London are on similar arrangements. This may only become clear when Goldman's Milan office suddenly needs hundreds of extra desks. 

Meanwhile...

It's a fine time to be an FX trader. Goldman's FX revenues doubled last year. (FX-Markets) 

Nomura's equities revenues rose 24% in the past quarter. Its fixed income revenues fell 14%. (Bloomberg) 

Nomura is getting back into prime broking. (Bloomberg) 

Pierre Andurand's Commodities Discretionary Enhanced fund is down 52% this year. (Bloomberg) 

Balyasny hired Joon Park as chief operating officer of its long-short equities fund. He founded Kodai Capital Management and decided to return cash to investors. (Bloomberg) 

As M&A deals grind to a halt, boutique firms are full of bankers without much to do. (Financial Times) 

Ex-PWC and EYY bosses are forming a new accounting firm, "Unity Advisory" in London. "People are looking for a proposition that is super client-centric [and] has really low administrative cost." The suspicion is that AI will do a lot of the work currently done by humans at the Big Four. (FT) 

It's not easy working in private credit now. "Gonna be honest, almost every deal you get staffed on is going to scream “train wreck” in this market (you really think a high quality asset with an appropriate capital structure is going to go to the private markets and pay a premium in this macro environment?)." (HighYieldHarry)  

Pope Francis’s personal wealth at the time of his death was just $100. He rejected many luxuries and maintained a modest routine, despite having all necessary expenses covered by the Vatican, such as food, travel, security, and accommodation. (Twitter/X) 

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libellous (in which case it won’t.)