Goldman Sachs top brass want bankers to come together in the office again, but now they have a different take on festive celebrations.
With the resurgence of Covid-19 cases, the Bank of Wall Street ordered teams in New York that had yet to host dinners and other internal events to cancel all remaining plans, according to people close to the case.
Goldman has been hosting holiday parties in recent weeks and a few more have been postponed, a bank spokeswoman said.
Goldman’s tougher new policy reveals a division on Wall Street over group gatherings for the holiday season after an exhausting, albeit lucrative, year for the financial industry.
New York’s high coronavirus vaccination rates and the easing of social restrictions have given many bankers hope they could resume the boozy celebrations this year. However, new concerns about the Omicron virus variant complicated plans for a second consecutive December.
A new indoor mask mandate went into effect in New York state earlier this week amid an increase in breakthrough cases, which have prompted some banks to revise their party policies.
Earlier this year, Goldman was among Wall Street groups that imposed a hard line by urging staff to return to the office.
As Goldman now takes a conservative stance on the festivities, other Wall Street giants are showing more flexibility. JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley allow teams and individual departments to move forward with their own parties, in the absence of a company-wide party, according to several bankers.
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.
Last week, a group of bankers from Morgan Stanley’s markets division threw an analysts party at Catch, a restaurant in western Manhattan. Dozens of people attended, according to a person familiar with the matter.
On Tuesday, another division of Morgan Stanley rented a bar in Manhattan’s financial district for its festivities. Less than half of the team showed up so there was excess free food and alcohol for the staff who came. “It was a little awkward,” said one party animal.
The smaller-scale dinners and happy hours planned for this year are a far cry from the extravagant pre-2008 financial crisis banking parties that featured celebrity appearances, models dressed as angels, and Michelin-starred meals.
The celebrations will take place as usual for some financial groups. SkyBridge Capital, a fund of hedge funds led by former Donald Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci, hosted a party Wednesday night at Cipriani South Street, a banquet hall in downtown New York. As of Wednesday afternoon, the party was still going, according to an email from the event’s organizers.
Although many bankers have said they are looking forward to the holidays, they said they got used to last-minute cancellations almost two years after the start of the pandemic.
Some Morgan Stanley parties have already been canceled.
A dinner for about a dozen fixed-income traders at a high-growth bank is scheduled for Friday, but it will likely be canceled as well, according to one of the traders who has been working regularly from the office since last summer.
“I would love to celebrate a successful year with the people I have spent the majority of my time with, but that is no longer the case this year,” said the trader.
Additional reporting by Owen Walker in London and Madison Darbyshire in New York