Financiers Lend Hand in Australian Wildfire Relief
Global financial companies, including UBS and Goldman Sachs, are gradually joining the efforts to support relief of the devastating wildfires which have ravaged Australia since November last year.
American investment bank Jefferies is the latest to join the global efforts to support wildfire relief in Australia by donating a full day (January 22) of its net commissions generated from any of the firm’s global clients trading in Asia Pacific securities including equities, fixed income and FX. Jefferies will also collect donations from staff globally and the firm will match both pools of contributions.
«All of us at Jefferies, including our 57 colleagues in Australia, 423 across Asia Pacific and 3,813 globally, are deeply saddened and concerned about this catastrophic devastation,» according to a statement from the firm’s CEO Rich Handler and President Brian Friedman. «We hope this donation from Jefferies will help, in some small way, to ease the pain of those affected by this disaster, and we encourage our global clients and employees to join our efforts to contribute to those in need.»
Lending a Hand
Global lenders elsewhere are also lending a hand to support the efforts including UBS’s which plans to pass on all its cash equity commissions made from its Australian trades on February 12, according to a «Bloomberg» report citing an internal memo. The proceeds will be donated to the Australian Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery fund.
Recently, Goldman Sachs and MUFG Bank have also offered donations of A$725,000 ($500,000) and A$40,000 ($27,600), respectively. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, a fellow Australian, wrote on a social media post last week that he and his family would donate A$1 million ($690,000) to support firefighters, wildlife and the restoration of rural communities.
