Goldman's secret weapon — Deutsche Bank trader exodus — WeWork's empty space

Welcome to Wall Street Insider, where we take you behind the scenes of the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives from the past week.

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Dakin Campbell took a close look at Ram Sundaram, the Goldman Sachs exec who has solidified his position as a senior leader in the firm's mighty markets division. Sundaram, named sole head of the currencies and emerging-markets team last month, is also responsible for a structured credit group known for much of its history as Principal Funding and Investments.

Dakin explained why the elevation of Sundaram — and what some see as his eat-what-you-kill Wall Street mentality — came as somewhat of a surprise to insiders who see Goldman marketing itself as a kinder, gentler investment bank.

You can read the full story here:

Inside the rise of Ram Sundaram, the leader of a secretive Goldman Sachs desk that's minting billions by designing some of the bank's most imaginative — and controversial — trades.

Alex Morrell was breaking news left and right on trader moves this week. Bank of America shook up its global equities division — twice. Among the changes: the firm elevated Soofian Zuberi to cohead the group alongside Fabrizio Gallo, the division's sole leader since 2011; announced the departure of Julien Bahure as head of equities in Europe; and appointed Martina Slowey to replace him.

Here's our latest org chart for Bank of America's equities division.

Over at Deutsche Bank, plenty of traders have been saying their goodbyes. That includes the bank's head of investment-grade credit trading, who left just this week. And Alex took a look at what's driving a broader exodus at Deutsche Bank's vaunted credit-trading desk, where even rock stars are feeling a pay squeeze. Rounding that all out, Alex also reported that a senior credit-trading exec who Wells Fargo hired just one year ago is out.

Buy now, pay later startup Affirm announced on Wednesday that it will power Shopify's Shop Pay Installments, which is set to launch later this year. The deal brings together two of the hottest e-commerce players, and Shannen Balogh explained why it's a big win for both sides.

Here's a look at 12 key execs driving Shopify, which has been an investor darling and seen its stock price triple since March.

More below on the hottest B2B and B2C fintechs, Neiman Marcus' exit from Hudson Yards in New York, the empty space WeWork is marketing in New York, and a roundup of top credit execs and new hires at Apollo.

Enjoy the weekend,

Meredith

We're seeking nominations for the 2020 Rising Stars of Wall Street

Business Insider is putting together a power list of young talent on Wall Street in 2020. We want to hear from you on the people who have been rising the ranks and standing out in the worlds of investment banking, investing, and sales and trading.

You can submit your ideas through this form by August 13.

WeWork's long list of empty space

WeWork is awash in vacancy in New York City, its biggest market, Dan Geiger reported.

The flexible-workspace giant, which has almost 9 million square feet of office space in the city and is its largest office tenant, has nearly 1.9 million square feet of available space. And its availability rate, which includes spaces that are empty or will be in the coming months, far exceeds that of the overall market.

Read the full story here:

20% of WeWork's New York space is sitting empty. Here's a look at key vacancies the city's biggest office tenant is trying to fill.

Apollo power players

Apollo Global Management has been quietly building out its credit team as the pandemic rages on and investors await a flurry of deal activity.

Recent hires have come from Bank of America and PointState Capital, and Casey Sullivan also learned about several others in the works, including the head of middle-market lending at Goldman Sachs. He took a look at Apollo's credit lineup to date, including senior execs who will be pulling the strings behind lending deals, and those who Apollo has tapped to help bring its credit division to the next level.

Read the full story here:

13 Apollo execs, rising stars, and new hires who are propelling the firm's massive push into credit investments

60 fintechs set to take off in 2020

The world of fintech moves fast, with no-name startups turning into fintech darlings with billion-dollar valuations seemingly overnight. Dan DeFrancesco and Shannen Balogh polled 27 fintech investors to find out which startups are on the cusp of breaking out.

Investors were able to nominate startups both inside and out of their portfolio, with the one caveat being the startup couldn't have raised beyond a Series B. The submissions were wide-ranging, touching on everything from personal finance to bill pay to data management. We broke them out into two groups: B2B and B2C.

You can see the list of B2Bs here:

Investors say these 38 fintechs are the next generation of breakout B2B stars, following in the footsteps of Stripe and Plaid

And a roundup of hot consumer-facing fintechs here:

22 fintechs that VCs and big investors say are on the brink of becoming household names

Everybody's a macro trader now

At the beginning of the pandemic, the market fell with each new update on infection numbers — and alternative data firms were quick to roll out new indices and markers to track the fallout.

But with the S&P 500 rebounding almost back to the heights it hit in February, hedge funds trying to make sense of it all have had to rethink the way they use their alt data. And as Bradley Saacks explains, just about every money manager is thinking big picture and looking more like a macro investor.

Read the full story here:

Hedge funds are overhauling the way they use alt data as even quants are being forced to think like macro investors

Neiman Marcus exits Manhattan

Neiman Marcus' surprise exit from the one-million-square-foot mall at the Hudson Yards not only knocks out the glitzy retail project's headline tenant — it could also unravel profits for the remainder of the space.

As Dan Geiger reports, developers the Related Companies and Oxford Properties had used Neiman's presence to attract other retailers to the 7-level property known as The Shops at Hudson Yards — and many of those tenants have co-tenancy clauses in their leases.

Read the full story here:

Neiman Marcus' exit from the Hudson Yards strikes a blow to the $25 billion mega-project. Here's how the departure could unravel the 1-million-square-foot mall.

Real-estate earnings preview

Analysts are predicting one of the most bruising quarters in recent memory for major real-estate firms such as CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, and JLL, which are scheduled to report earnings in the coming weeks.

The companies depend heavily on transactions such as sales and leasing that evaporated as the pandemic stalled the economy. But while it could take years for their earnings to rebound, real-estate services companies have also diversified their revenue since the last recession, which could help guard their bottom lines.

Read the full story here: