Monday, July 27, 2015

Why Are More Top Wall Streeters Heading to California?



The short, and best answer, is that they are following the Federal Reserve money flow. The biggest Fed spigot is in Silicon Valley, now gushing so strong that money is flooding north into San Francisco.

Here's WSJ with a secondary answer:
More top Wall Streeters are California dreaming.

A technology-fueled gold rush is drawing seasoned financial executives with the promise of sunshine, fresh managerial challenges and compensation that can top even the seven-figure paychecks common in the investment world.

Blackstone Group LP said Friday that its chief financial officer, Laurence Tosi, is leaving the private-equity firm to become finance chief at Airbnb Inc., the booming home-rental service. He is just the latest Wall Street executive to move west to take advantage of massive investor interest in fast-growing companies seeking to upend entire swaths of the economy.

Mr. Tosi, 47 years old, has made a good living by any standard since he joined Blackstone following its 2007 initial public offering. He earned about $15 million last year, according to filings, and $33.8 million over the past three years, not including dividends and some other perks, such as proceeds from investments made in the firm’s funds.

Yet those sums will likely appear paltry next to his winnings should Airbnb pull off a successful IPO in coming years, as many analysts expect...

Beyond pay, joining fast-growing technology firms can offer other goodies. Away from the shadows of Wall Street, executives can find a higher profile and increased freedom.

Anthony Noto left Goldman Sachs Group Inc. a year ago and became finance chief at Twitter Inc., the messaging service that the stock market values at $23.7 billion. Ruth Porat traded Morgan Stanley for Google Inc. Vanessa Wittman, formerly of insurer Marsh & McLennan Cos., is at cloud-storage company Dropbox Inc., another business valued in the billions of dollars in private financings.

Ms. Porat was wooed by Google with a compensation package worth around $70 million, including a one-time bonus and new-hire stock grants. That was more than twice what she took home in total during her previous three years at Morgan Stanley, according to securities filings.
 -RW 

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