Morning Coffee: When JPMorgan ousted a steady male banker for one with dubious tastes. ExodusPoint's prolonged revival

Hindsight is a fine thing and if it were applied to the case of Jes Staley and Bill Winters when they were at JPMorgan, things would probably turn out differently.

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Winters, now aged 64, has had a career unmarked by scandal. Married to the same eclectic theatre director for years, his most risqué moment was the exposure of a nipple in a fundraising video during 2015.

And yet, in 2009 the well-liked Winters was famously ousted as co-head of JPMorgan's investment bank by disgraced banker Jes Staley. As of yesterday, we now know that Staley spent the following year in contact with Jeffrey Epstein, and that during that time Epstein sent a woman instructions to dress up in a Snow White costume so that he could "take photos." Three weeks later, Staley sent Epstein a message saying "that was fun. Say hi to Snow White."

Having a Disney fetish should not be career-ending. Staley's problem is that it was facilitated by Epstein, who had been convicted of sex offences involving minors in 2008. Staley's problem is that he subsequently denied all knowledge of Snow White in court, where he also proclaimed no knowledge of Epstein's “monstrous activities.”   

As Staley is once again dragged through the residue of his relationship with Epstein, Winters - who has been happily running Standard Chartered since 2015 - can be excused a moment of schadenfreude. As accounts from the time make clear, the mild-mannered Winters was rudely displaced by Staley in the run-up to his 48th birthday in 2009. Winters, who had successfully steered JPMorgan's investment bank through the financial crisis, had no idea what was coming. "It was a complete bolt from the blue,”one colleague told the FT of his firing at the time.

A good banker was replaced by a bad one. Maybe JPMorgan could send a retrospective apology.

Separately, it wasn't so long ago that hedge fund ExodusPoint was losing AUM and suffering shrinking headcount. Now, the fund is on a roll.

Business Insider reports that ExodusPoint returned 1.8% in January after 2025 was its best year ever. Citadel and Schonfeld both returned 1%, by comparison. 

Meanwhile...

Goldman Sachs top lawyer Kathy Ruemmler asked Jeffrey Epstein to help her get a job at Facebook. He said:“I suggest you prep for your meeting as a case. Read up mark, sheryl, prepare an opening and summary. Along with a case strategy. III help.” She said: "These decade-old private emails you are selectively referencing and pruriently reporting on have nothing to do with my work at Goldman Sachs.” (Financial Times) 

Peter Mandelson sought advice from Jeffrey Epstein on a job offer worth up to $6m from Deutsche Bank. In 2010, he seemed to have an offer with a salary of $1m (£733k) with scope for a bonus of between $3m and $9m, in line with what “a senior banker would be paid in the UK market”. (CityAm) 

Legal juniors would ask Jeffrey Epstein to review their CVs. (Legalcheek) 

The British Treasury wants to cut 300 people by 2030 and is offering them £100k exit packages if they've worked there for 21 years and earned £80k. (The Times) 

Crispin Odey says the Financial Conduct Authority was under “political pressure” before it decided to ban him and fine him £1.8mn for a “lack of integrity”. (Financial Times) 

Victoria Buhler, who works for Robey Warshaw, now part of Evercore, is joining Keir Starmer instead. She will work with Varun Chandra, the prime minister's chief adviser on business, investment and trade. (Sky) 

Barclays wants to grow securitized products. It just hired Chetan Vohra from Cerberus as global head of securitization, based in New York. (Businesswire) 

Jain Global hired Barclays director Jiujiu Xiong to its team of macro portfolio managers in Singapore. (Financial News) 

ING hired Alexander Critien from JPMorgan as global head of rates and non-linear trading. He was just head of rates EMEA options trading at JPMorgan. (Financial News) 

Top hedge fund quant used agentic engineering tools to query a lifetime of Gmail emails. (WesMcKinney) 

China's "genius classes" which coach 100,000 gifted students a year to compete in international competitions in maths, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science are its secret source. (FT)

Viktoriia Honcharuk, a 25 year-old banking analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York is now a combat medic in Ukraine. “I was afraid of blood, I was afraid of needles, I’ve never done anything medical before, but I was like, ‘That’s what I need to do.'” (New York Post) 

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