The National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF) is on the hunt for a new investment director, and NAMA is in the process of building its portfolio management team. Comparatively speaking, this is a flurry of hiring activity for the country’s asset management sector, and recruiters are expecting competition to be stiff.

In a rather understated job advert, the NPRF says it’s for someone holding a CFA or equivalent with experience of managing a portfolio at a “large investment company”.

This underplays the national importance of the role, particularly after the fund purchased €7bn of shares in the country’s two largest banks at the government’s behest last year. The NPRF also had a good 2009, returning 11.6% after benefiting from the equity market rally.

John Corrigan, the former investment director who took the chief exec post at the National Treasury Management Agency in December, has large shoes to fill – not least because he’s been with the NPRF since its inception in 2001.

“I came with the furniture,” he told us previously. “I had a blank sheet of paper and €6.5bn in the bank. The task was then to get the team on board and develop an investment strategy.”

NAMA is also still needs to appoint a head of portfolio management, and has been recruiting for portfolio manager roles in January. It intends to employ a team of 25-30 in this division, according to its business plan.

James Hayes, manager – banking and financial services at recruiters Robert Walters, says this represents a significant recruitment drive within the asset management industry, which has been particularly quiet over the last 18 months.

“There’s a surplus of investment professionals on the marketplace,” he says. “It’s therefore likely that both NAMA and the NPRF would have received a huge volume of applications. Key business positions have been replaced, but there’s been little growth over the last 18 months.”

NAMA says it has received over 2,000 CVs for all the positions it’s advertised to date, while the NPRF would not comment on how many applications it has so far attracted for the investment director position.

A chief investment officer typically earns between €270k-300k base in Ireland, while an investment director can expect a salary of between €200-220k.

Salaries for these new roles are not revealed, but the government will no doubt want to strike a balance between paying enough to attract the best candidates while being careful not to spark public anger at lavish financial sector compensation.