Confirming what every girl who’s ever visited a City bar already knows, Bloomberg has the story:
Jonathan Downey, the owner of the East Room club on the edge of London’s financial district, says bankers are the last people he wants as members.
“We don’t want the archetypal City idiot, waving his cash about at the bar and braying like a buffoon and annoying women,” said Downey, 42, whose club charges men an annual membership fee of 350 pounds ($655). Women pay 150 pounds.
Shoreditch and Soho House are said to be out (who’d want to go with all those media types around anyway?). Bungalow 8 might well be a possibility but only for those so desperate they’re willing to be the least “funky” person in the room:
Clubs sometimes do admit financiers, according to Wakefield. Bankers who get into Bungalow 8, in Covent Garden, “have a great time looking at all these great funky people and, really, people are looking at them thinking, ‘What’s happening to this club?’”
Having said that FT Alphaville does genuinely sympathise with Commerzbank’s Daniel Hernandez and Citigroup’s Jake Turner – two 24-year-olds who have shared their feelings of rejection with Bloomberg.
Maybe there is an opportunity here for diversification. We’ve got a couple of extra chairs here at FTA HQ. There are unlimited copies of the newspaper for perusal and some mornings we have coffee and croissants.
Membership details on request.
Related links:
London Clubs Rebuff ‘Braying’ Bankers – Bloomberg