Day: September 30, 2025

• Fintech wunderkind Charlie Javice must serve seven years in prison for conning JPMorgan Chase out of $175 million.
• Some 300 bankers vetted the 2021 purchase of her startup, but it took a year to learn its 4 million users were fraudulent.
• The judge said he took that into consideration, but ultimately decided “fraud remains a fraud.”

“Stupidity.”

“Very poor due diligence.”

“Someone who is a fool.”

On Monday, a Manhattan judge used all of these terms to describe the JPMorgan Chase bankers who fell victim to a fraud perpetrated by fintech entrepreneur Charlie Javice.

You don’t often hear a sentencing judge taunt a fraud victim like this — not that it mattered to his bottom line.

In sentencing Javice to seven years in prison and $287.5 million in restitution for using fake data to clinch the 2021 sale of her startup Frank, US District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said his job is “punishing her conduct and not JPMorgan’s stupidity.”

“Fraud remains a fraud,” Hellerstein explained, “whether you outsmart someone who is smart or someone who is a fool.”

During the sentencing, Javice’s lawyers had tried to convince Hellerstein that the bank’s status as a victim was not so cut-and-dried, and that $175 million was not a serious amount of money to lose for a bank worth nearly $4 trillion. “That’s nothing,” trial evidence had shown one bank executive scoffing about the sale price.

Still, the sentencing shows that even when the victim is a banking giant like JPMorgan — who the defense said should have known better — blaming the victim is little help.

“Whether you outsmart someone who is indifferent or someone who is careful, it’s the conduct,” the judge explained.

An ‘audacious’ fraud

Back in 2021, some 300 in-house diligence officers had vetted JPMorgan’s decision to buy the then-28-year-old’s startup Frank, a platform that helped students fill out federal financial aid applications.

No one at the bank realized until a year after the merger closed that Javice’s claimed database of 4 million Frank users — college-ready young adults the bank hoped to pitch for credit cards and checking accounts — was a fiction.

Nearly every promising Gen Z prospect on Javice’s user spreadsheets had been made up. Their phone numbers, home addresses, and emails were made up, along with any accompanying Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and personal financial data.

JPMorgan Chase had spent $175 million to buy Frank without ever actually seeing its spreadsheets. Javice had dodged their requests, citing privacy concerns over sharing her users’ personal data. An independent vendor ultimately validated only that the data fields for 4.25 million “users” were “populated versus null/blank.”

“Audacious, multi-faceted, fueled by greed,” prosecutor Micah Festa Fergenson called the fraud during the sentencing.

Frank was “a crime scene,” not a viable acquisition, the prosecutor told the judge.

Hellerstein spent all day Monday sentencing Javice, a fintech wunderkind once featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, still in her 20s when she attracted investment capital from Aleph’s Michael Eisenberg and Apollo’s Marc Rowan and met one-on-one with JPMC’s CEO, Jamie Dimon.

It was halfway through the sentencing that the largest bank in America started getting chided.

It began when defense lawyer Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., told the judge that Frank had value — real potential and talent — beyond its user base.

“Frank did good — Frank worked,” Sullivan said, even if it worked for far fewer people than Javice claimed. Frank never had contact data for more than 300,000 users.

The bank had also rushed to clinch the merger, fearful that another rival bank might do so, the lawyer said.

“A lot of blame can be assessed against JPMorgan Chase,” Hellerstein agreed. “It’s not relevant” to sentencing, the judge added. “Nevertheless, it’s in the background.”

The defense lawyer pressed his point.

“Ms. Javice’s case is not the prototypical type of fraud case,” Sullivan told the judge. “This case was a 28-year-old versus 300 investment bankers from the largest bank in the world that did due diligence in 22 business days.”

The lawyer added, “Part of the rush was what they called a defensive play, that they didn’t want another bank to get this product.”

“What consideration should be given for JPMorgan Chase’s very poor due diligence?” Hellerstein asked.

“I think your honor said it best,” Sullivan answered. “I’ll adopt your honor’s phraseology — it should be in the background in your consideration as a relevant factor in thinking what is a fair and appropriate sentence.”

When the judge asked, “How far?” the lawyer laughed, “Not too far — it should be pretty close up, your honor.”

Ultimately, the judge disagreed.

An attorney for JPMorgan Chase who attended the sentencing did not return phone and email requests for comments on this story left after business hours.

Javice’s seven-year prison sentence falls between the 18 months hoped for by the defense and the 12 years requested by prosecutors. In allowing her to remain free during what could be a year or more of appeals, Hellerstein gave a nod to Javice’s many letters of support and her years-long struggle with infertility. She intends to use the time to continue trying to start a family with her partner, defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro had told Hellerstein.

“If there is a chance for it to succeed,” the judge responded, “I want to give it to her.”

• Electronic Arts’ $55 billion sale is a boon for Wall Street’s biggest banks.
• Investment bank hiring remains spotty and selective, however, with senior bankers benefiting most.
• Recruiters break down the industries and jobs that are seeing the biggest hiring surge.

Wall Street’s M&A rebound got a boost on Monday with the biggest take-private buyout in years, but experts are warning that the hiring landscape isn’t showing the same signs of revival.

Video game producer Electronic Arts on Monday said it would be sold for $55 billion in a transaction hammered out by bankers at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. The price tag marks it the biggest take-private deal since the M&A boom in 2007 that preceded the global financial crisis. Though that’s welcome news for everyone’s league tables, it doesn’t stand to do much for their job boards, insiders said.

“Even a deal of that size is not going to move the needle that much” on year-end bonuses and job opportunities at Wall Street banks, said Alan Johnson, a compensation expert and founder of the consultancy Johnson Associates.

Dealmakers kicked off 2025 anticipating a cascade of M&A opportunities, but tariff concerns in the first half of the year temporarily halted growth. Though M&A is ticking up and big deals like the EA transaction certainly help, experts who spoke to Business Insider said the market for jobs has yet to return to the frothy levels reached during the pandemic, when global dealmaking broke new records.

“I would not be effusive that hiring is back. I think firms are still cautious,” Johnson said. “It’s probably gone from negative to flat,” he said of bank hiring levels, adding that AI will shrink analyst and associate classes, leading to fewer open roles over the long term.

M&A: activity is returning, but slowly

So far this year, global dealmaking has produced standout transactions like Google’s planned $32 billion acquisition of Wiz and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $13.4 billion purchase of Juniper Networks.

Large blockbuster transactions, however, don’t necessarily translate into an M&A market that lifts all boats. Indeed, data from deals tracker LSEG shows that while worldwide deals by volume were up 32% year-to-date as of late September, at $2.95 trillion, the total number of deals was down nearly 9%.

Sophia Samadian, an investment banking recruiter at the firm Selby Jennings, said the focus has been on senior origination hires who can drive dealmaking, versus legions of support staff. “I think you’re going to see more origination talent being needed, especially at the director, managing director level,” she said.

Hiring has also been largely sector-specific, she said. “While the overall job growth is modest, I think there’s definitely sectors that are picking up, she said, adding that healthcare, energy, and ESG finance are “hiring aggressively.”

AI and fintech

Artificial intelligence is helping boost financial technology dealmaking and hiring, experts said.

Samadian said clients are creating dedicated teams for AI, crypto, and digital infrastructure. “We’re seeing just more investment firms in general try to focus and tailor into being crypto-focused or AI-focused or digital infrastructure or data analytics,” she said. Some dealmakers, she added, are spinning out of bigger banks, launching their own shops to get in on the action.

KPMG estimated $44.7 billion of fintech investment in the first half of 2025 — which the firm acknowledged was a drop from the prior six-month period — including about $7 billion for AI-focused firms.

The rise of artificial intelligence will also lessen the need for some bankers by automating time-intensive tasks. “You don’t need three analysts” on a deal, Johnson said, referring to Wall Street’s youngest ranks. “You need one analyst.”

Healthcare and biotech deal flow has begun to return, driving hiring needs in the sectors. This month, Lazard hired biopharmaceuticals insider Geoffrey Porges to its healthcare advisory group, a sign that banks are selectively boosting life sciences coverage, for instance. Recruiters also said analysts and associates with deep modeling experience in biotech and healthcare services are still attractive.

Equity capital markets: still waiting for momentum

Equity capital markets hiring has been slower than M&A, despite the recent surge in high-profile IPOs. Johnson said equity underwriting incentives are flat to down. Samadian said her team has seen only scattered hiring in ECM.

“From the capital markets perspective, right now it’s been a slower market for the equity side versus M&A, which is very much ebb and flow,” she said.

Johnson expects most bankers will be paid more this year, but increases will be modest. “Most people are going to get paid more this year. I think if you’re really good,” the year could hold promise, he said. “If you’re average, not so much.”

According to summer projections from his firm, equity sales and trading bonuses were expected to rise by as much as 30% on the backs of strong volumes, fixed income sales and trading by as much as 20%, and debt underwriting by up to 15%. Advisory and equity underwriting were projected to be flat to down.

One recruiter pointed to optimism coming from the buyside — private equity firms hungry to do a deal — that next year could be more robust: “There’s a lot of positive momentum in buyside hiring” going into the fourth quarter, said buyside recruiter Anthony Keizner of Odyssey Search Partners. And that could benefit everyone.

“Alternative investment firms have been buoyed by rate cuts, decent investment returns, and asset inflows,” he said, adding that this is translating into robust 2026 hiring plans.

• Deloitte UK’s annual revenue fell 1% in its latest financial year.
• Hiring and promotions were also down at the Big Four firm.
• Despite the slowdown in demand, partner take-home rose by 4%.

Annual revenue at Deloitte UK has declined for the first time in 15 years,

The Big Four professional services firm released annual results on Tuesday, reporting annual revenue of £5.68 billion ($7.6 billion) in the year ending 31 May 2025 — a 1% decline on the previous year. The results include the firm’s Switzerland office.

Growth at Deloitte UK has slowed in recent years, falling from 14% to 2.4% in its 2024 financial year, but this is the first time revenue has registered a drop since the Great Recession years of 2009 and 2010.

“Geopolitics and continued economic headwinds meant that many organisations have been carefully managing their costs and delaying certain investments,” said Richard Houston, the CEO of Deloitte UK and a senior partner, in a press release. He described the firm’s performance as “a robust set of results in a complex market.”

Deloitte’s consulting business contracted 10% to £1.67 billion, or $1.9 billion, which the firm said was caused by clients holding back investments in “large scale change programmes.”

To respond to the slowdown in demand, the CEO said that Deloitte UK has “had to review and make changes to the shape of our firm,” and focused on “operating more cost effectively.”

Compared to the previous financial year, Deloitte cut promotions by 1,300 and appointed 20 fewer partners. The firm also reduced hiring for the second year running — the number of “new colleagues” fell from 6,800 in the 2023 financial year to 3,160 this year.

The firm’s UK arm has reorganized its business divisions, laid off workers, and introduced a series of cost-cutting measures, such as reducing its spending on staff travel and expenses by more than 50%.

Profits were up 4% in the 2025 financial year, and average profit per equity partner rose to £1.05 million ($1.3 million).

UK partners pocketed over £1 million for the fifth year running, the highest partner returns amongst the Big Four, which also includes PwC, KPMG, and EY.

Deloitte converted 77 people from salaried to equity partner, nearly three times as many as it did the previous year. The firm said the promotions were “a sign of confidence in our firm’s future and the growth opportunities ahead.”

Globally, Deloitte is the largest of the Big Four by both revenue and employees. Its UK branch contributed about 10% of the firm’s global revenue in its 2024 financial year. Global results for the 2025 financial year have not been released yet.

The Big Four firms are attempting to balance operations following the end of the pandemic-era rush on advisory services, which left consulting divisions within an inflated workforce. AI is also driving change and disrupting revenue streams across major consulting firms.

The results reflect the market up to May this year.

In an internal memo to Deloitte’s UK staff in May 2025, obtained by Business Insider, Houston said the firm had anticipated “greater economic stability and a gradual return of growth opportunities” at the start of the 2025 financial year.

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