Top 20 rainmakers - Blackstone's Bumble boost- Wall Street's talent war

Hi readers!

Welcome to the long weekend and to Insider Finance. Here's a rundown of the must-know stories from the past week:

• Meet the top 20 bankers involved in 2020's biggest M&A deals.
• Wall Street's talent war for 2022's class of interns has already kicked off. Here's why the search started so early.
• An inside look at how Blackstone transformed dating-app Bumble, which soared in its IPO debut this week.
• The Goldman Sachs trader who built the 1MDB trades that landed the bank in trouble is set to exit.
• How money managers are rushing to get a grip on ESG investing as Biden commits to fighting climate change.

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The Rainmakers: Here are the top 20 dealmakers who put together the biggest mergers and acquisitions of 2020

While M&A had a down year during the pandemic, bankers still orchestrated a number of megadeals.

Insider partnered with the financial-data platform MergerLinks to identify 2020's top 20 bankers. The ranking is based on lead investment bankers who arranged the largest M&A deals in North America.

More on deals this week:

• Former TD Ameritrade CEO and chairman Joe Moglia's SPAC announced plans to acquire fintech OppLoans in a deal valued at $800 million

Applications for Wall Street summer internships in 2022 are already opening. Here's why the talent war for undergrads is starting earlier and earlier.

The timeline to nab a summer internship on Wall Street can start as early as two years beforehand. Banks like RBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets are among the first to open applications for summer analyst positions.

Insiders explained how competition among firms is accelerating the start of the process.

For more on battles for best talent:

• Big Law is scoring talent from the Big 4. Here are the law firms winning the battle for professional services talent.

Here's how private-equity giant Blackstone transformed Bumble, the dating app targeting a valuation of more than $7 billion in its upcoming IPO.

Bumble's public offering marks a milestone for Blackstone's growth equity group.

The group started in 2019 when Blackstone hired Jon Korngold from General Atlantic and has also invested in oat milk brand Oatly. Korngold spoke with Insider in January and detailed several changes Blackstone helped implement at Bumble.

For the backstory on how Blackstone and Bumble matched up:

• Jon Gray is the future of Blackstone. 50 insiders reveal how the super investor consolidated power, elbowed out rivals, and is remaking the firm in his golden-boy image.

Biden is committed to fighting climate change. It has money managers scrambling to get a grip on sustainable investing.

Firms are pushing deeper into sustainability as Biden's administration eyes a stronger ESG approach. The administration has already ushered in wins for climate activists and may finally look to define ESG.

We asked industry insiders how firms were addressing the rise in socially responsible investing.

For more on sustainable investing this week:

• How BlackRock is 'sprinting' to solve ESG's data dilemma, according to Aladdin's sustainability head

Read the full memo announcing the exit of a Goldman Sachs exec who built the 1MDB trades that landed the bank in trouble.

Ram Sundaram, the head of currencies and emerging-markets business at Goldman Sachs, is planning to exit the firm.

Sundaram is a Goldman partner who was closely involved in the design and sale of the trades the bank did for the Malaysia development fund known as 1MDB. Sundaram has had a leading role over the past 15 years in some of the bank's most imaginative - and at times controversial - trades.

Read more for other big changes at Goldman:

• A former Stripe exec was just tapped to help run Goldman Sachs' Marcus and lead its direct-to-consumer strategy.

A new investor letter from billionaire hedge-fund manager Izzy Englander lays outs Millennium's massive 2020, from blockbuster performance to a global hiring spree

Billionaire Izzy Englander's Millennium had its best year since 2000. In the firm's annual letter, which went out to investors last week, Englander lays out the firm's personnel growth and fundraising activity.

Other hedge fund news:

• Billionaire Alan Howard's hedge fund Brevan Howard just hired a longtime Goldman Sachs mortgage trader as a portfolio manager
• Volatility-focused hedge fund manager Christopher Cole warns that Wall Street needs to wake up to social media 'weaponization' after GameStop frenzy

Other stories readers loved this weekz

• More than 100 Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC alums sit on S&P 500 company boards, fueling concerns over conflicts of interest. Here's our exclusive look at the web of board members that used to work at Big 4 firms.
• PayPal is seeing high engagement numbers from crypto holders on its app as digital currency is shaping up to be a key part of the payment giant's future strategy
• How to get a job at Grayscale, the world's largest digital asset manager
• FT Partners, a top fintech deal advisor, is now raising its own $400 million SPAC with a private equity firm
• A startup helping community banks expand their reach with digital offerings just nabbed a $53 million Series C round led by Insight Partners
• Meet Zach Newkirk, the Perkins Coie lawyer who raked in a six-win streak on 'Jeopardy!'