Morning Coffee: Sorry end for ex-Goldman VP who smoked weed most weekends. Asian bankers at forefront of summer cuts

efinancialcareers.com:

In his early 30s, Brijesh Goel had it all. After starting his career at Deutsche Bank in New York, he joined Goldman Sachs aged 26 and was already a vice president on the structured credit team. Aged 36, he achieved a position at Apollo, the buyside firm with a reputation forindecently high pay. 

Yesterday, however, Goel, sunk his head in despair. He was convicted for conspiracy, securities fraud and obstruction of justice, a sentence that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. 

The source of his demise was a friendship with a Barclays trader, Akshay Niranjan, whom he met at business school in California. Bloomberg says the two men hung out together most weekends. They smoked a lot of weed. They attended music festivals. They also played squash while drunk, and it was during a squash game that Goel imparted his first trading tip to Niranjan.

Goel gave Niranjan seven tips in total, generating a total of $292k. But the FBI was onto them and Niranjan — who left Barclays in August last year, agreed to wear a wire and to testify against his friend.  A recorded conversation in a stairwell was played in court, with Goel stating: “F—-… This we need to delete. Did we put on any trade?.. It has to be deleted. I don’t even have this chat.”

Niranjan won't be prosecuted under an agreement with the US government. Goel, however, now faces not only a long prison sentence, but deportation to India. It wasn't the weed or the drunken squash that directly did it, but he will now have plenty of time to lament his hedonistic interlude after his MBA. 

Separately, it seems that Asian bankers are particularly vulnerable to losing their jobs. Reuters reports that UBS will begin removing Credit Suisse's bankers in Asia starting from