"It's not that I'm afraid I won't have a job, what with the market booming the way it is," the investment banker said. "It's just that I can't stand the way they're stringing us along, taking their time about telling us who they want and who they don't."
Those remarks typify the pandemonium that has gripped the New York office of Schroders PLC ever since Citigroup Inc. offered to buy the London company's investment bank for $2.2 billion in January. The deal was driven by Citi's goal to expand its European investment banking business, but Schroders also has a U.S. operation with about 1,000 employees - not to mention its Lewco Securities clearing unit in Jersey City, N.J.
Over long lunches and in closed-door meetings at 787 Seventh Ave., where Schroders' New York operation is based, the buzz has been about Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney unit and which Schroders employees it will keep.
Salomon's effort to identify the keepers among a work force of investment bankers is not likely to bring any outpouring of sympathy from labor activists. With unemployment at its current low, even factory shutdowns have a hard time getting much attention.
But these people can still complain - not for attribution, of course.
"Do you know they've already put my managing director through 21 interviews. Twenty-one!" a Schroders veteran says. "And he doesn't have a clue what's going to happen to him. Of course, he pulls down a million and a half a year. They're taking their time with folks like that."
On the other hand, says the banker, "the analysts and associates don't have a thing to worry about. They're relatively cheap. And with business the way it's been, Salomon Smith Barney would just love to have those warm bodies to execute deals."
Like many of his colleagues, this investment banker is not sitting around waiting for word from the powers that be at Salomon. "I'm on my third round at Lehman Brothers, and yesterday I spent the morning at Goldman Sachs. Last week I spoke to J.P. Morgan, but I haven't heard anything back. I'm getting four phone calls a day from headhunters."
"You should have heard this guy at Goldman," another Schroders banker says. "Do you know what he asked me? He wanted to know what motivates me in life. Can you believe that? I asked him: 'Do you mean what deals have I done? What did I learn from them? Why do I like doing deals?' No. He wanted to know what motivates me in life."
The banker's response? "I said I did deals because I was still trying to win the approval of my mother. I didn't know what to say."
As for staying with Citigroup, he says: "I don't know. I think it's good to be in a big organization, but you know Schroders is different from Salomon Smith Barney. We're British, proper, collegial. And Salomon has always had such a cowboy culture."
Schroders' professionals say they view some Wall Street institutions as friendlier than others. "The energy m.d. is trying to get his whole group hired by J.P. Morgan," one banker explains. "That would be great. You don't make as much money at Morgan, but it's a more civilized environment."
For the several hundred back-office employees at Schroders' Lewco division across the Hudson, the future is even more uncertain.
"I don't think anyone even knows we own it," a Schroders investment banker says. "Those people are definitely going to get screwed."
Things are much different at Schroders' head office in London. The U.S. bankers say their counterparts in the United Kingdom "are going to 'school dances.' Mixers with the Salomon people. Cocktail parties, dinners."
And there are rumors abroad that the Schroders family is going to sell the asset management business next, these bankers say. Apparently, Chase Manhattan Corp. offered to buy the entire company before Citigroup made its bid for the investment bank, but the family felt it could earn more selling the company piecemeal.
Between the speculation - which includes gossip that the deal may not go through for some reason - and the endless prowling by recruiters, employees in Schroders' U.S. operation say they are having a hard time concentrating.
"Salomon Smith Barney says we should be operating business as usual," one banker complains. "I'm working on two live deals - one buy-side and one sell-side - and I can't get a thing done. It's terrible for the clients.
"This uncertainty could go on for months, or at least until the deal closes at the end of April," he says.
But slowly, offers from the prospective buyer are beginning to trickle in. One associate was asked to "join the team" but is still waiting to hear exactly what her new role will be and how much she will be paid.
"The protocol is, they make you an offer. You accept, and then you talk about money," she says.
"You have to remember," she adds, "this whole interviewing process is just a way to make you feel like crap."
