In recent weeks we have been pursued by people telling us about the enormous amount of hiring taking place in equity derivatives. Now that we’ve looked into it, it seems we’re too late: there’s no hiring after all.

“Although critical hires will still have to be made, a lot of the plans for bringing on additional people this year are getting shelved,” says Jeremy Kemp, of equity derivatives headhunter Jeremy Kemp International. “Business levels have dropped off a lot over the past few weeks. Senior management are pulling the plug on headcount and budget plans.”

Equity derivatives businesses appear to have suffered from May
volatility, with Friday’s rumoured losses at SocGen thought to be attributed to the equity derivatives business.

This is a shame, given that the first half of this year was awash with equity derivatives hiring, and everyone thought would continue.

“It’s been a phenomenal start to the year for equity derivatives,” says Zaheer Ebrahim at recruiters Kennedy Associates. “There’s been a lot of movement across all areas, from structured products to Delta One, with everyone fighting over the same talent and senior moves triggering further replacement hires.”

Big equity derivatives movers this year have included: Alivise Munari, who left BofA Merrill for Morgan Stanley; Pierre Mendelsohn, who followed him; Mark Valentine, who’s rumoured to have left Goldman for BofA Merrill to replace Mendelsohn; and Yassine Bouhara and Axel Kilian, who as we observed last month, have gone to UBS and will probably want to hire at some stage, but maybe not until 2011.

One senior equity derivatives salesman tells us the picture is, “very, very mixed,” and that there are “losers and winners” from recent events. Are there more losers than winners? “It’s too early to tell,” he sighs.