Wall Street’s salesmen and dealmakers, whose expense accounts help fill downtown chophouses and box seats at ballparks, are now treating clients to a different kind of entertainment: high-end workouts.
Pre-dawn and afternoon classes at Manhattan fitness studios SoulCycle, Barry’s Bootcamp and Flywheel Sports are growing popular with bankers who want to bond without loading up on liquor and fatty foods, according to traders and salesmen. John Abularrage, head of Tullett Prebon Plc’s Americas unit, takes clients to 5 a.m. sessions at Barry’s Bootcamp in Tribeca, where they run on treadmills and lift weights to thumping dance music.
“Some of them are more eager than you would imagine to trade a heavy dinner or drinks for a workout,” said Abularrage, 35. “When there’s a lot of entertaining to do for your job, you can get out of shape pretty quickly.”
Bankers who sell stocks or bonds have long plied mutual-fund traders and hedge-fund managers with tickets, meals and drinks in the hopes that friendship -- or at least familiarity -- will lead to more trades. Health-conscious clients increasingly view steak dinners as “three-hour ordeals,” said Chelsea Kocis, a 26-year-old former equity saleswoman.
“‘Let’s meet at 5 for a workout,’” she said, describing the way she’d invite out traders. “‘You can be home before your kids go to bed.’ That’s an enticing thing for a lot of people.”
Spin Classes
Another equity salesman, who asked for anonymity because his company doesn’t let staff speak with reporters, said he e- mails clients a weekly invitation listing classes he will attend. The 5 a.m. sessions at SoulCycle in Tribeca, a block from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. headquarters, are the most popular with brokers and portfolio managers, he said.
Kocis quit her job at Bank of America Corp. last month to start a cycling studio in the Flatiron district called Swerve Fitness, which will cater to banker outings by letting people form teams and compete on stationary bikes. Eric Posner, one of her partners and a former HSBC Holdings Plc salesman, said some of the more than $1 million they raised to start the business came from traders they used to take to other classes weekly.
“There’s a bond you can form with someone through fitness that you can’t at a bar,” Posner said.
The boom in fitness studios on which Posner and Kocis are trying to capitalize dates to at least 2006, when SoulCycle opened and found New Yorkers willing to pay a premium for a 45- minute spinning class in a dance-club atmosphere with motivational instructors. While the sessions go for $34 apiece, customers can pay about twice that to reserve popular times early -- as much as the monthly membership dues at some gyms.