Bankers Bonuses

Back in January, I wrote a column for Bloomberg suggesting that bankers at firms such as UBS and Morgan Stanley should be made to hand back their bonuses. The argument was fairly simple: the deals had gone pear-shaped, and so they didn't derserve the money. The column took a fair amount of flak on some of the financial blogs. So I'm pleased to see that the UBS is reported this morning to be planning to re-claim some of the bonuses it paid out in previous years. Good for them. It is time investment bankers learnt that bonuses aren't just free money. You actually have to earn them.