Buyout

So we got bought by a J-bank. Big securities broker-dealer but we'll see what the fallout is.

I guess worst case we will now get severence packages. Thank god.

It is not as prestigious but the heyday of ibanking is done for now. The world illumanti who run this country play games w/ industries like this. Rise and fall of dot.com's, teleco's, bio, and now banking. All the banks have scrambled for partners so soon there will be no independent ibanks (in fact only GS and MS are left), but later they will spin off when the profits are so big again that it makes sense to spin them off in a massive IPO split. Its the game thats played in corporates.. merge/spin/merge/spin, generate fake paper wealth, burn the employees. Not to sound bitter, as my bitter employment days are past, but just to speak some cynical reality.

The insider gossip is that the J-bank is going to offer nearly full guarantee bonuses as a staff retention plan. Makes sense since they buy no assets, just people and processes. This year looked like a 0% bonus year, so now i'm back up to my last years deal which is quite a break. Japanese are typically on 16month plans anyways, 12months normal salary, +2 months bonus * 2 times a year. That actually is on par w/ my last years comp, roughly 12+ 4 (maybe +5 but close enough).

I think from an IT perspective integration will be hellish. Oh well.. I guess I need some new excitement in life.

My vacation is nearing the end. Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. Good to get around by pack. I found I can wear the same clothes more than 2 days in a row. Haha pretty gross but actually not that bad.

It'll be interesting to get back to the grind to see the fallout on Monday.. I have been out so missed all the action. I wonder if my new role as the Tokyo IT head of Credit will be gone, expand, or stay the same now that Tokyo is again the HQ for operations....