eFinancialCareers

There's more to the Middle East than sovereign wealth funds. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have made headlines in the past few weeks, thanks to the hyperactive investments of their sovereign wealth funds, which have helped several international banks out of a sticky sub-prime situation. But there’s more to the region than state investments. International banks are also present – and hiring. Macquarie opened a Dubai office around two... Read more

It was all going so well: booming Chinese IPOs were expected to feed demand for equity capital markets bankers. Suddenly the future’s less certain. Until markets gyrated last week, there were reasons to think 2008 might be a boom year for jobs in China’s equity capital markets (ECM) businesses. According to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the total IPO funds raised on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges last year amounted... 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

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

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

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

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

There are plenty of pessimists around the Australian investment markets but Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital Investors, isn’t one of them. The leading Aussie economist says despite the global downturn and rising interest rates locally, 2008 is likely to see growth remain vigorous in Australia, thanks to strong investment and exports. “Increases of 60-80% in prices for iron ore and coal will add just over $2bn a... Read more

Set to rival London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), Singapore’s new junior market could create jobs in the city state. Last year, Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) unveiled Catalist – a sponsor-supervised listing platform for fast growing local and international companies. Banks are already getting in on the act. Earlier this month, SGX named 10 sponsors for companies seeking a listing on the junior bourse, including Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, as well... Read more

It’s been a rough six months for Aussie banks, and one leading stockbroker says more losses could be in store. Since August last year, shares in NAB have plummeted 26%, ANZ shareholders have lost 23%, and Babcock & Brown and Macquarie shares have also taken decent hits. Grant Williams, a director of Sydney-based stockbroker Reynolds, says without a crystal ball it’s difficult to say for sure where share prices are headed.... Read more

Managers at Babcock are busy informing their minions how much they'll earn in bonuses this year. It should be (very) good news. The investment bank announced last month that its net profit had jumped 58% in the latest year, to AU$407m, and that its bonus pool had risen an impressive 38.5%, to AU$573m. Based on the bank’s 1,435 headcount at the end of December, the average bonus per employee will be AU$400k,... Read more

Wall Street is definitely not the flavour of the month at the moment, especially when it comes to investment banking. It’s not really surprising, therefore, that many Australians working in the Big Apple are checking out their job options for fear they may not have a job in the very near future. According to Adam Gillibrand, Australian-based executive director for US recruitment and consulting firm Options Group, an increasing number of expat... Read more

Who'll buy ABN AMRO's Australian unit? And what will happen to its 700 local staff? With a reported AU$1bn price tag, and most banks struggling to find cash at the moment, sale advisers Lazard Carnegie Wylie certainly have their work cut out. Analysts regard ABN AMRO’s mergers and acquisition division as one of the key strengths of the local unit, and say any buyer will likely be keen to retain as many... Read more

Wholesale redundancies don’t seem to be on the agenda right now for Australia’s major and regional trading banks, or for most of the investment banks. That’s the word from senior recruiters, although the marketplace is still full of downsizing rumours, including one that Bank of America will scale back from a trading bank to a branch office, and that Citigroup will slice into its local headcount. Edmund Gill, director of Hays... Read more

The slowdown in equity capital markets is taking a toll on the hiring activity of some of Wall Street's biggest names. UBS, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have all seen fees earned from equity and debt capital markets fall between 40% and 70% in the first three months of this year. And with fewer listings amid turbulent market conditions, investment banks in Asia, which had their most profitable... Read more

Investment banks are coming up with innovative ways to keep some staff on their payrolls, even while they let go of others in the wake of the credit crunch. This inventiveness mostly takes the form of long-term stock grants, or measures that let banks defer cash expenses in hopes that revenue growth will pick up later on. They may not be popular but, with most banks facing a more... 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

It’s probably the best-kept secret in Australian banking circles right now. Just how big will Macquarie Bank’s profit be when it reports its annual results on 20th May, and will employee bonuses rise, fall or remain the same as last year? The bonus question has just about everyone stumped, with recruiters having little if anything to go by, except Macquarie’s own recent forecast that its full-year earnings will be up about... Read more

The AU$18.6bn merger plan announced this month between Westpac and St George looks destined to lead to big job cuts. Experts expect thousands of jobs to be axed as the banks integrate their operations and reduce overlaps across different divisions, as well as at the branch level. Toon Van Beeck, senior analyst with industry research group IBISWorld, estimates mergers and takeovers in the banking sector will result in the loss of... Read more