US private equity firms scramble to hire young investment bankers

New York

THEY are only in their early to mid-20s, but some young bankers on Wall Street are the most sought-after financiers around, with lucrative pay packages dangling before them.

Junior investment bankers who graduated from college only last year are being madly courted by private equity firms such as Apollo Global Management, the Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and the Carlyle Group in a scramble that kicked off last weekend. After back-to-back interviews, many are now fielding offers for jobs that won't start until the summer of 2016.