eFinancialCareers

Banks including JPMorgan continue to recruit in equity derivatives as the sector looks set to survive the credit crunch comparatively unscathed. JPMorgan’s Asian team has grown from five to 45 since 2003 and headcount will continue to rise to meet Indian and Chinese demand, according Ong Tsui Keng, the bank’s executive director for equity derivatives. Ong tells us: “The expansion came as a result of the need to cover... Read more

There is drama galore in the murky world of securitization, but for bankers’ jobs the outlook seems decidedly tragic. It remains to be seen whether the recent decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to buy AU$780m of mortgage-backed bonds will help to kick-start the market, says one leading economist, who asked not to be named. In the short-term at least, this isn’t exactly sweet music for... Read more

Is Australia awash with expats fleeing slaughter in the City? Well, yes, it seems many suddenly have remembered the joys of home, particularly those in securitization. But leaving London doesn’t always lead to a great job in Aus. Emilie Everett, UBS’s country head of recruiting, has noticed more CVs than normal from people wanting to come back. “They have not lost their jobs, and are from all levels of seniority,... 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Société Générale has confirmed the closure of its Australian securitization department in Sydney. It’s not a good sign if you’re a securitization pro. “The Securitization Department in Australia (only) was closed down on 23 January 2008. No other business lines in Australia were affected. The majority of the securitization team have been redeployed to other areas of the bank,” SocGen communications manager Sally Trenchard-Smith told us. “The department was closed due 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

China may be in the grip of its biggest freeze in decades, but equity derivatives specialists, in HK and on the mainland, are seriously hot. Volatile stock markets, plus the desire of wealthy Chinese to diversify portfolios, means demand for equity derivatives products is going through the roof, and banks are rushing to make the most of the opportunity. Last month JPMorgan Chase said it was appointing three new vice... 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

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