Morning Coffee: Harsh times at the bank that touted homeworking and a four day week. Unfortunate episodes involving AI meeting notes

If anything should be worth more than the sum of its parts, it is surely Atom Bank, the appropriately named British digital bank that has appointed Jefferies to sell it. Unfortunately, the Financial Times reports that Atom's attempt to flog itself for 120 times earnings is not going well. It seems no one wants to buy it. 

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This is bad news for Jefferies' European financial institutions group (FIG) bankers. It's worse news for Atom Bank's UK employees who've had a good time under CEO Mark Mullen but may find life less clement if a sale doesn't happen and Mullen leaves.

During his 12 tenure at Atom, Mullen has touted both four day working weeks ("bloody logical") and freedom to avoid the office ("bloody inefficient when it comes to consumption of resources to get to and from the working environment, and it's bloody inefficient when it comes to managing the transition between personal life and working life.") Allowing people to work from home is good for attracting top talent, said Mullen, without swearing. His stated intention has been to make Atom one of the UK's very best places to work. 

Atom's top talent generated £5.1m ($6.6m) in pre-tax profits in the year to March 2025. They were paid an average of £68k ($90) each, which is not a lot compared to investment banks, but isn't so bad when you consider they're working 34 hour weeks selling mortgages and deposits, mostly work in operations, and can live in very cheap locations if they want to. 

Maybe this will soon be over. Maybe it's over already. Recent Glassdoor Reviews suggest Atom may not be the talent magnet it used to be, although we have not validated this with the bank and it's conceivable that a disgruntled minority are unhappy with alleged changes to their perks. 

Either way, Atom Bank's discovery that it's probably not worth the £600m it thought it was, may provide some light schadenfreude for the Jefferies bankers trying to sell it, many of whom are probably working twice the hours and are in the office every day.

Separately, AI notetakers in meetings have issues. They are zealous. They register everything that's said. Bloomberg notes that there have been occurrences in which the notetakers have noted participants complaining about their jobs and colleagues. Beware.

Meanwhile...

Jason Barron, head of global markets at UBS has been given an extra role as head of AI transformation at the investment bank. He will 'leverage his previous experience in large-scale transformation.' (The Trade News) 

Millennium is opening an AI lab. This will focus on accelerating early access and assessment of AI products as well as collaborating with AI firms on projects and attracting top AI talent. It will be a "highly entrepreneurial environment." (Bloomberg) 

Rothschild appears to have used a favourable AI generated photograph of Lucy Baldwin to announce her arrival. (Financial News) 

It's a fine time to be an M&A banker in the US power and utility industry. M&A transactions in the sector were a record $204bn in the first five months of the year, up 40% on $142bn for the whole of 2025. (Financial Times)

Paul Dou spent eight years as a quantitative researcher at Citadel in Hong Kong. Now he's starting a new Hong Kong hedge fund, Third Epsilon, backed by Millennium. (Bloomberg)

Amsterdam-based IMC Trading BV is offering Indian traders $14k a month, triple what it was offering in 2024. (Bloomberg) 

Mark Byrne, head of European credit syndicate at TD Securities, is joining HSBC. (Global Capital) 

It seems that Troy Rohrbaugh, a former trader, is most likely to replace Jamie Dimon. (Reuters) 

Do not ride your bike recklessly in the City of London. Antisocial cycling is the primary offence in the City and City police will wrestle you to the ground (while they still exist). (Financial Times) 

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