A 21-year old University of Michigan student, Moritz Erhardt, was found dead in his shower after reportedly working 72 hours in a row as an investment banking intern for Bank of America and Merrill Lynch in London, The Independent reports.
An exhcange student from Germany studying at Michigan who was completing a seven-week internship, Erhardt suffered from epilepsy, and after working for nearly three days in a row, collapsed in the shower of his East London student accomodation after returning from home from work at around 6 a.m. every day.
"He was found dead in the shower by his flatmate," commented one anonymous poster on the site wallstreetoasis.com in the thread "Intern at BAML [Banking of America and Merill Lynch] who went home at 6am three days in a row." Other commenters related their banking internship experience, one user writing that his was the "worst three months" of his life.
"It is absolutely true - he was found dead in the shower by his flatmate," one poster wrote.
Indeed, Erhardt's exhaustive three days of straight working is not an uncommon sceneario for investment banking interns.
"Every intern's worst nightmare is what's called 'the Magic Roundabout' - which is when you get a taxi to drive you home at 7 a.m. and then it waits for you while you shower and change and then takes you back to the office," one 20-year old intern told the Evening Standard in 2011.
A former investment banker confirmed to The Independent that banking interns could work as many as 14 hours a day. "Interns can regularly clock up to 100 or even 110 hours a week, but people are fully aware that banking is hard work and the company constantly reminds you to manage upwards in order to not overheat," said the anonymous source," though he added that "this is the first time [he's] heard of something like this happening, and banking is a very close culture."
A spokesperson for BAML, international communications head John McIvor, confirmed Erhardt's death and said that the company is "deeply shocked and saddened by the news."
"He was popular amongst his peers and was a highly diligent intern at our company with a promising future," McIvor said in a statement. "Our first thoughts are with his family and we send our condolences to them at this difficult time."
An internal email circulating to prevent miscommunication within the company explained that "there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death," adding that the "incident is now in the hands of the police."
Click here to see a photo of Moritz Erhardt, the intern found dead in his shower by his roommate, as well as pictures of the residence where he stayed in East London
