To what extent does the success of a FICC franchise depend on its managers? It clearly does not hurt market leader Goldman Sachs that chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and president Gary Cohn both rose from a FICC background. Goldman has plenty of high-performing talent still embedded in FICC, often in the form of surprisingly young managers. Blankfein’s disclosed bonus and a firm-wide total payout of $21 billion or more will dominate headlines when Goldman announces full-year results in January. But FICC stars such as Ed Eisler and Ashok Varadhan can expect eye-popping bonuses that they will attempt to keep under the radar. Even if bonuses are closer to 40% of revenue than the old industry standard of 50%, there will still be about $10 billion of FICC compensation to share out. Eisler and Varadhan parlayed former jobs as swap traders then heads of...
