BofA Associate Death - WSJ, FT, CNBC, Bloomberg
Posting again calling for journalists to pick this story up since the other thread got taken down (not mine). We know you guys read this forum.
Everyone in this community owes it to this guy’s family to not let this thing die out. If we let this slowly fade away like all the other deaths in IB then this shit will continue to happen. BofA needs to be held responsible for this. Do not let them sweep this under the rug and try to silence you.
Think about if it were you who left behind a wife without a husband and kids without a father. How many more people have to literally die for seniors to realize working 120 hours a week does not change the outcome of a deal.
I have a call scheduled with a reporter today(I'm in the group)
Feel free to contact me - @MilanaVinn.01 on signal and @MilanaVinn telegram. We already published the first story on this matter and will be updating with details as we get them confirmed.
Forgot to add - I’m with Reuters.
i love your content, dang find it hilarious that there are actually reporters here and not only college kids
bump
Good morning, my name is Emily Flitter and I'm a New York Times reporter writing about this matter. Please get in touch. You can DM me on X or go to my NYT profile page to get my protonmail or NYT email addresses -- and after you email or DM me I'll send you my phone number. I tried to post all of this on here but the site won't let me post links in comments because I'm a new user. Please get in touch! Thank you. -Emily
I'd be very careful going on the record with the NYT. The story needs to get out there but we've all seen the quality of their "reporting" last few years - you give them a quote and they'll probably twist it to make it sound like you were one of the ones responsible for the problem
Eh you may be right, but id give her the benefit of the doubt. She’s at least being proactive trying to get something out on it. Besides the NYT hates capitalism and corporate greed which this story fits that narrative quite well.
Please don't sugercoat your piece on this story. Be ruthless with these BofA MDs. They have blood on their hands.
She covers the "impact of finance on society" and wrote a book about Big Finance bankrupting black America - hopefully we can expect some blood.
Nice try undercover BAML counter litigation team
...
Unnecessary man delete this. Fucking up the banker image even more
Imagine being so much of an incel that you take the death of a veteran as an opportunity to make a joke aimed at dissuading a reporter from helping us all prevent this from happening again.
Smartest Australian
Moronic comment - you want this topic to be taken seriously or do you want to perpetuate the stereotype of bankers being shallow assholes?
Nobody sees the NYTimes as a credible source of information.
Such a tragedy. Something needs to change.
Hello! Our first story on this matter is already published on Reuters and we will be updating it throughout the day. We are looking to speak with any current members of the FIG team at BofA. Please contact me via email, signal or telegram at @MilanaVinn. Thanks in advance!
Have you guys tried to contact the Head of FIG Gary Howe, who deleted his LinkedIn profile once the news got posted on WSO?
I believe its Gary Howe*, and yeah seems the guy deleted his Linkedin profile
Please contact me privately. Thanks!
This is Certainly one of the more concerning aspects of this situation. I remember monitoring the thread on which his name was first mentioned where someone posted a screenshot of his LinkedIn. Just minutes later, he tried to privatise it to just his first name and then the initial of his surname. A few more minutes after this, he completely wiped his LinkedIn. Now the timing is suggesting he was monitoring the thread and wiped his LinkedIn when there was a sudden jump in profile viewers. It's unlikely he deleted it cause of threats etc: 1. LinkedIn is quite possibly the least likely place to receive a death threat, 2. The majority of us viewing these threads are finance professionals or college students breaking into finance who wouldn't dare risk the reputational suicide of confronting someone this senior in the industry would come with even if it was done through burner accounts, 3. People this high profile in finance receive weird and sometimes outright scary message requests all the time (especially group heads - you don't think The global head of BX PE has not received some outlandish message requests before? Why does he not take his LinkedIn down?). In fact, the only people in our industry who have a legitimate reason for deactivating their LinkedIns are secretive hedge fund employees and even then some of the times this is for an unethical reason that's not even stipulated in their contract. E.g. Some Elliot employees with no linkedin presence since the entire nation of Argentina hates their company (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/03/29/how-one-hedg…) and a plethora of other savvy yet unscrupulous practices. I guess, it suggests the head of FIG also did something to the extent it would make an entire nation dislike him, and I think we all know what that is.
*Omitted The head of FIG's name in the quote tweet to prevent WSO taking my comment down*
Looking on Reuters now but cannot find the post. I hope your team didn’t get a nudge from BAML to take it down
I would attach the link but the website is not letting me. Google “Bank of America investment banking exec dies” and the article should come up.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-america-investment-banking-exec-145…
Bit light on reporting yeah vs. https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/associate-at-us-bank-said-to-d…
Milana - thank you for publicizing the story, but there are a few critical missing pieces. I understand that you likely do not have anyone on the record yet, so cannot say anything outright, however:
- The guy who passed away was not an exec, he was a first year associate (second most junior rank at an investment bank). Banking is very much a hierarchy and juniors have little to no control over their time or work streams
- The reason WHY people are so upset is because he allegedly worked four ~120hr weeks in a row on a deal BofA was trying to close, and this purportedly resulted in his death. It is not unusual for bankers to work long hours, however 120 hours for four weeks straight is extreme. Also, banks have hour monitoring systems for juniors so the superiors on his deal team knew he was working this much and did nothing
- BofA’s FIG group head has been notorious for fostering an unsustainable and abusive culture. The group has been known to work extremely long hours and lead to junior burnout
Your Reuters article claims a BofA "executive" died. An Associate is a junior level role, it's one level above Analyst who are right out of college. MUCH different than an executive dying because associates are expected to do as they're told and work long hours.
Hi, my name is Kevin Dugan, and I'll be writing about this for New York Magazine. You can reach me on here, or on X — my handle is KevinTDugan.
I’m a freelance writer on Substack (platform that encourages free speech) with over 30000 subscribers. I obviously am not acquainted with every writer in the city but am being told that journalists are being held back by management to not further investigate this story until the cause of death is official as it could tarnish BofA’s reputation.
As this is a new account I am not allowed to post links, but if you or anyone you know is a part of this group please message me. I’m appalled by how this story is being denied to the public due to banking and media politics.
Cause of death was aparently acute coronary artery thrombus. At least according to Yahoo article posted 30 minutes ago.
Given how this can be caused by EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS FORCED TO DO, when can we expect articles?
This is the one year anniversary of the suicide of a VP at Bank of America in Houston. May is mental awareness month. Be safe everyone. It’s a jungle out there.
Oh what?! How come this never came to light man. Do you have more details around this? I work at another bank in Houston but never learned about this.
CONVENIENTLY THE US OUTREACH EMAIL ADDRESS AND NUMBER ARE GONE FROM THE INTERNET.
They have to run this. They are going to run this.
Hi there, My name is Kristen McGachey and I'm a reporter with Financial News (WSJ sister title). We're following this story and would be grateful to speak to anyone in the FIG team who can provide more info. I'm new to this site but feel free to DM me on X or LinkedIn.
Thanks,
Kristen
Glad to see we finally have an actually decent newspaper here
https://nairametrics.com/2024/05/07/bank-of-america-executive-dies-afte…
No mention of BofA leadership but we are finally getting somewhere. The first article to actually acknowledge that he was working a lot.
Just so so remarkably sad...
Daily Mail just posted an article about it
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13391501/Bank-America-banker-f…
No mention of the hours worked or his difficult deal unfortunately
Let's support the Lukenas family during this challenging time: https://www.classy.org/campaign/the-lukenas-family/c585052
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investment-banking/leo-lukenas-wa…
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