Morning Coffee: A good reason to work for Citi instead of Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan. Who will work for the US sovereign wealth fund?

Before JPMorgan demanded that all its people return to the office five days a week last month, someone at the bank created an internal presentation, seen by Barrons. Among other things, this flagged the risk that people at JPMorgan might just leave rather than resume a full-time commute. If they do, they could always leave for Citi. 

Citi is not asking all its staff back into the office every day. The Financial Times reports that Citi CEO Jane Fraser has told Citi people they can continue to work from home two days a week for the foreseeable future. Fraser has also declared this policy both a competitive advantage and a recruitment tool. As well as recruiting from JPMorgan, Fraser could hire from Goldman Sachs, which likes its people in the office every day too. 

After a difficult bonus round, Fraser's flexibility might be a genuine draw to Citi. Homeworking will also help Citi alleviate its squabbling over seating, and will give the bank time to cultivate the cascading bushes that will entice people into its new London office from 2026.

Separately, Donald Trump wants a US sovereign wealth fund to, “invest in great national endeavors for the benefit of all of the American people.” In an executive order, yesterday Trump gave the Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of Commerce 90 days to come up with a plan for the fund's creation. 

The new US fund could be enormous. Based on existing federal assets, Trump's order notes that it will have at least $5.7 trillion in assets under management, suggesting it will be five times bigger than the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). 

What will it invest in? 'Great national endeavours' implies infrastructure, although TikTok is also a possibility.   

Who will work there? The ex-Goldman Sachs and Point72 people working for the Saudi Public Investment Fund in New York City could always apply. 

Meanwhile...

Ten years ago, Perella Weinberg Partners fired its then-star banker Michael Kramer via voicemail. The two are now in court: PWP says Kramer illicitly poached its staff and has to repay bonuses; Kramer wants $60m of deferred bonuses. PWP also says Kramer was a terrible manager and that people were "repelled" by him. However, be brought in a lot of business and this was what mattered. (Financial Times) 

Walleye was up 3.6%  in January. Balyasny and Schonfeld were up 2.5% and 2.2%, respectively. ExodusPoint and Millennium were up 2% and 0.5%. The S&P 500 finished the month up 2.7%. (Business Insider)  

Permira is opening an office in Dubai. (Bloomberg) 

Standard Chartered is expanding in India. (Bloomberg) 

Financing the AI boom, or not. (Net Interest) 

An HR director says there's diversity fatigue in financial services: "Many companies [made] big gestures. Almost none are talking about it now that it’s out of the spotlight.” (Financial Times) 

Google is effectively offering people voluntary redundancy by letting people working for its platforms and devices division leave with their stock. (New York Post) 

If you want a lounge chair by the pool at St. Vincent in the Caribbean, you need to be up at 4am. Fla. “It is a brutal payoff to have a great chair in the premium spot or at all, in some cases. If you get up at 5 or 6 you might still get a chair, just not the best one. If you get there at God-forbid 7 a.m. you might miss out altogether.” (WSJ) 

"Another thing I did to distinguish myself during my internships was perform magic tricks at events like my boss's birthday. That helped to leave a memorable impression on my colleagues." (Business Insider) 

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