Hit HBO finance show ‘Industry’ could use an audit over banking world flubs, fans say

The hit television show “Industry” gives viewers an inside look at the lives of twenty-something Wall Street-types — full of sex, drugs, high finance, and lots of banking errors.

The HBO blockbuster, currently in its third season, has drawn the consternation of fans over its lack of attention to detail about how the finance industry really works, according to The Wall Street Journal.

For instance, they note that one episode showing traders working feverishly on a company’s initial public offering was out of touch since IPOs are not usually a task for traders. Another plot line had the bank nearly failing because of a botched pivot to “ESG” investing. 

“They get the vibes to a tee,” Tom Morgan, a 43-year-old who was a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch in London for a dozen years, told The Wall Street Journal. “But the plot isn’t always realistic.”

“Industry” follows a group of graduates as they jumpstart their careers at the London offices of Pierpont & Co, a fictional bank likely inspired by JPMorgan Chase. The famed 19th century banker J.P. Morgan’s middle name was Pierpont.

The drama series premiered in 2020 and has been hailed as “the new ‘Succession,’” which followed the family owners of a global media giant and racked up Emmys during its four-season run.

“Industry” paints a picture of an intense, overbearing work environment, with screaming matches on the trading floor and even the death of a young employee.

“As the story built out, we decided that we were actually making a drama for HBO, not a documentary for PBS,” Konrad Kay, one of the show’s two creators and a former salesman for Morgan Stanley in London, told The Journal. 

Kay said the show “feels truthful to us in a way that’s far more interesting to us than the reality of whether it would happen or not.”

“Industry” plays up the scandalous aspects of the traders’ lives – boozing, cocaine and sex – to a point that many finance professionals call unrealistic.

“Unfortunately, there was no gratuitous sex, at least in my experience,” Morgan, the former Merrill Lynch trader, told The Journal.

The second season of “Industry” starts with one of the show’s most glaring errors. Robert Spearing, a salesman and one of the show’s main characters, is struggling to save an energy company’s IPO. But someone with his job normally wouldn’t handle this type of deal, former bankers said.

Reddit users were quick to point out the plot hole – and the show even admitted they were right.

“That was a huge fudge,” said Mickey Down, the show’s other co-creator and a former employee at Rothschild & Co. 

The showrunners needed Robert to be both a salesman and an investment banker for the plot of the show – even if it didn’t make any sense, Down said.

Then, the fictional Pierpont endured a crisis after it borrowed too much money to buy stakes in companies with the controversial Environmental, Social and Governance policies. Markets lost confidence in the bank after the IPO deal fell through.

But bankers say this is unrealistic. Most banks would never borrow so much money to invest in ESG companies because they would want to avoid increased regulatory scrutiny.

And even if the bank did make such a strange move, it wouldn’t be enough to sink Pierpont entirely, experts said.

High Yield Harry, an anonymous finance influencer, spotted another “Industry” mistake that went viral on social media.

The traders used a measurement of “pbs” on some of Pierpont’s Excel spreadsheets – a likely misspelling of “bps,” which stands for basis points.

Social media users were unsure whether it was a typo, or an intentional flub to poke fun at the characters’ ineptitude. 

“Let’s just say it was intentional,” Kay told The Wall Street Journal.

The showrunners said they enjoy seeing fans pay so much attention to their show online, whether they are pointing out inaccuracies or not.

“The idea of people watching eight hours of TV and thinking, one of the things I’m going to take away from it was the formatting on this page, is crazy,” Kay said. “It’s a huge compliment.”