eFinancialCareers

Australian infrastructure investor Babcock & Brown has set a new record for staff cuts at a going concern. It announced this morning that it plans to cut headcount by almost two thirds between now and 2010. Babcock’s stock has plummeted 99% this year, and today’s announcement followed a warning that it was in danger of breaching its covenants and needed to reduce costs by $150m in order to halve... Read more

If you’re looking for a crunch-immune sector of the hiring market, financial planning may be it. Count Financial has slapped a freeze on head-office recruitment, yet the dealer group is still hunting for financial planning talent, according to chief executive Marianne Perkovic. Demand is focused on people who can bring clients with them. “They need to have experience of dealing with clients face-to-face,” Perkovic says. Melbourne-based executive recruiter... Read more

Recruitment in Australian asset management has proved more resilient than in banking, but stagnation is setting in and a fall in jobs may follow. Jenny Greiss, an executive at Anton Murray Consulting, says the funds industry is managing the downturn well compared to the sell-side. “Funds don’t hire so aggressively during the upturns, so they don’t need to make so many people redundant when the market turns down,” she adds. Luke... Read more

The contrasting fortunes of AMP’s fund management and risk businesses are mirrored by the wider recruitment market in these sectors. While AMP’s fund management division reported a fall in earnings, the group’s results were boosted by the strong performance of its risk unit (Money Management). AMP Capital’s chief economist Shane Oliver tells us that the credit crisis, oil price rises and high interest rates created a “perfect storm” for... Read more

Fund management professionals looking for jobs in Australia are encountering a tough market, but certain skill sets and international experience are still sought after. The number of asset management job vacancies has declined in just the last two months, according to Lee Humphrey, a fund management principal at Derwent Executive. Humphrey says most of the movement is replacement hiring. “There are still some headcount rises, but these tend to... Read more

What is it about ABN AMRO employees that’s so irresistible to Babcock & Brown (B&B)? The ASX-listed investment bank has poached ABN’s entire Indian M&A group, having nicked its infrastructure team 18 months ago. ABN staff might well be desirable, but this latest raid was motivated more by location: India. While outsourcing retail support roles to the sub-continent is common, we are now starting to see banks, including B&B... Read more

It’s left the finances of some of Australia’s biggest local governments in poor shape, but Lehman Brothers is adamant the Grange Securities fiasco and the credit squeeze won’t force an early exit from the domestic market. The global i-bank has grown its Australian staff by 50-60 over the past 12 months, according to Michelle Sprod, head of marketing at Lehmans. “We will continue to grow as the market dictates and... Read more

Forget the US bulge bracket – Australian private banks are the new kids on the block in Asia, and they’re hiring voraciously. Macquarie Bank launched its Asian private wealth business in Singapore in March this year to target the booming regional market. National Australia Bank is also aggressively expanding in Asia, says Sicilia Lim, a senior consultant at recruiters Robert Walters. Lim says the Australians and other new niche... Read more

Domestic and international bond markets returned to favour in the first quarter of 2008. A report from Morningstar indicates the domestic bond index jumped 2.21%, while hedged international bonds chalked up a 2.72% return for the quarter. Citigroup’s credit sector specialist, Mark Reade, says corporate bond volumes are also strong, with the banks and AAA Kangaroo issuing at lofty levels. “It’s been so strong that almost AU$20bn in corporate bonds... Read more

Forget the credit crunch – infrastructure recruitment is continuing as if it never happened. “Everyone’s hiring in that space at the moment,” says Melissa Tal at recruiter Michael Page. Local and global banks are chasing Macquarie and Babcock & Brown’s lead. Others in the sector agree: “We definitely see it as an important part of our future,” says Mark John, head of infrastructure and utilities at Westpac. “It’s an... Read more

First quarter 2008 was a nightmare for world share markets, as investor confidence was squeezed by sizeable bad debt writedowns by banks across the globe and mounting evidence that the US is headed for recession. The MSCI World Index finished the quarter down 12.4% in AU$ terms, contributing to a minus 14.6% return for the year to 31 March. Portfolio mix still global Despite the gloom, Australian institutional and retail... Read more

It's not looking good if you fancy landing a job in the Australian financial services market. The Aussie banking sector job market is floundering, according to the most recent monthly instalment of the Olivier Job Index. Report author Bob Olivier, a director of recruiter Olivier Group, attributes the poor results – down 5.12% in February – to the credit crunch, interest rate rises and the stock market sell-off. “Sub-prime write-offs have hurt... Read more

Forget US business schools, a new study suggests MBAs from China see the biggest boost to their earnings once the course has finished. The Financial Times’ 2008 MBA report found that alumni from Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University and Beijing’s China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) land the biggest salary increases upon graduation – 177% and 157% respectively. By comparison, graduates from a big name like the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School... Read more

There are signs that Australia’s appetite for banking talent isn’t quite what it was. According to the latest Olivier Internet Job Index, banking and finance was one of the slowest growing sectors in the past 12 months, dropping 1.45% in January. Is the sky falling in on the banking recruitment market? Bob Olivier, the report’s author, and director at Olivier Recruitment Group, says he’s not convinced: “We’re putting it down to interest... Read more

Senior women in Australia earn 50% less than their male counterparts, according to a Federal Government report. Is the same true in banking? No – at least not according to Bob Olivier, a director at the Olivier Recruitment Group in Sydney. He says the report’s findings astonished him. “My experience is that clients won’t offer a job to Julie rather than Steve to save on salary. It might be that if... Read more

Australia hasn’t lived up to its promise for ANZ’s ex-group managing director, Steve Targett. How common is it for immigrant bankers to come unstuck? In the case of Targett, the stakes are high and getting higher. Last month, he upped his damages claim from AU$2.1m to a hefty AU$57m, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review. Targett, a former banker with Lloyds TSB, claims he left his well-paid job... Read more

It’s often the case that when senior management changes occur, the after-effects can be felt through the organisation for some time to come. It’s too early to tell what sort of executive after-effects might develop following the departure of Macquarie Bank’s long-standing CEO Alan Moss in May, but most believe it will be pretty much business as usual on the recruitment front when new boss Nicholas Moore steps in. Macquarie expects to... Read more

Regardless of market uncertainty, there are several reasons why banks in Asia should keep hiring. And they are…. Talent shortages Matthew Hoyle, Asia Pacific director of headhunter Matthew Hoyle International, says: “There is still a tremendous shortage in the five to nine years' experience bracket across nearly all divisions, due to SARS and the Asian Crisis. No one was trained and hardly anyone hired during that period.” China Mainland Chinese banks have huge... Read more

Who’s hiring in Victoria? Big banks, according to recruiters. Sadly, the spokeswomen for both Melbourne-based ANZ Bank and National Australia Bank were unwilling to comment on their organisation’s hiring needs for 2008, but recruiters assure us both banks are staffing up in Melbourne during the first quarter of this year. “We have seen a big increase in demand for business development and relationship management staff due to new sales budgets that have... Read more

Stock markets have further to fall, Bank of America’s making redundancies, and recruiters say some banks are already scaling back Asian hiring plans. Reuters reports that Bank of America is scaling back its DCM business in Asia Pac and making around 15 people – mostly structurers and originators – redundant. After steep falls of 20% or more from last year's peaks, many equities now look cheap. But even after the Federal Reserve's dramatic “emergency”... Read more