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Goldman Sachs traders are wringing their hands ahead of this year's bonus season, one of the most emotional times on Wall Street.
The sudden prospect of billions of dollars in fines from the scandal involving the 1MDB Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund has some traders worried that the bank has found a useful scapegoat to scrimp on bonuses. Employees are set to learn about their annual pay numbers next week.
"They'll find any excuse to cut comp," one trader in equities said. Another said the possibility of the 1MDB scandal eating into employee compensation was definitely a worry, though predominantly among the more "pessimistic" at the bank. The traders were based in Goldman's New York and London offices.
Morgan Stanley is in the process of dismissing dozens of sales and trading staff.
The cuts are being made to cull the firm's underperformers or reposition desks that may need fewer staff, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It's part of an annual process that the bank has made more rigorous in the past few years, one of the people said.
Simon Holden, an 18-year veteran of Goldman Sachs' banking division who was a key banker responsible for the firm's relationship with the Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank, has retired from the firm.
Holden was most recently the bank's vice chairman for investment banking in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, according to a memo sent late last year and viewed by Business Insider.
He previously served as chief operating officer of the investment-banking division.