GF
Company: SAFE
It’s official: Qatar is the new place to be in the Gulf
One of the side-effects of the Arab Spring has been a gravitation of financial services professionals towards safe havens in the Gulf; notably, Dubai and Qatar. However, according to a new survey, Qatar is now the most reputable Gulf financial centre in the eyes of the international community. While banks are talking up expansion in [...]
Q&A: Citigroup’s Central European Banking head talks about his career and explains why he prefers candidates with a sense of fun
Linos Lekkas, Citigroup’s head of banking for Greece and Cyprus and recently promoted Central Europe banking head, has answered our questions about his career in investment banking and the fact that – ultimately – it is personality that makes a senior banker stand out. This is Linos: This is what he said: 1) How long [...]
Arguably the safest banks to work for in the Middle East across M&A, ECM and DCM
Times are tough for investment bankers working in the Middle East. The total fee pot has fallen by nearly 50% on last year, according to new Thomson Reuters figures, and the first half of 2010 was hardly a stellar period. As we’ve mentioned previously, there are already mutterings about redundancies within the relatively small regional [...]
Expat ‘dead wood’ beware the coming cull in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi is rolling out an old trick to create jobs for Emiratis – laying off expats. While this is so-far believed to be confined to the public sector, financial services could soon be affected. A new Emiratisation drive in Abu Dhabi is, according to a report on Reuters, being sanctioned by the Executive Council, [...]
Even if expats leave, Bahrain’s banking sector may be OK
The ongoing problems in Bahrain may have seen something of an exodus of expat bankers, but it’s questionable whether this is creating any real problems for the industry. Unlike the UAE, where the proportion of Emiratis working in financial services is relatively small, Bahrain’s banking sector is predominantly staffed by locals. In an interview with [...]
A senior UBS banker explains how to ace interviews and avoid failure during your first days on the job
Lutfey Siddiqi CFA, head of FICC corporate coverage & FX distribution Asia-Pacific gives some sage advice to young bankers. It can be disconcerting for fresh graduates to shift from the heights of academia to the bottom rung of a bank. Apart from a reversal in status, many find the unarticulated rules of the game -expectations [...]
HSBC is making redundancies in the Middle East, should you be worried?
HSBC is implementing the second round of redundancies in the MENA region in two years. Again, the proportion of staff affected is minimal (at 3%), but this time it’s driven by a global downsizing operation, rather than concerns over the Middle East. Around 360 people in HSBC’s 12,000-strong Middle East workforce are to be cut. [...]
Could the UAE be next for Middle East political unrest?
As bankers flee Bahrain and Egypt in the wake of political upheaval, those in the plastic oasis of Dubai look blithely on, even anticipating benefits as more people and companies look to the emirate as a safe haven. But is it really that sheltered? The idea that the UAE could see any political upheaval seems, [...]
GUEST COMMENT: Pity the expats who lose their jobs in Dubai
Upheaval in the Arab world is spreading fear among Dubai’s expat bankers The permeating paranoia is not that the ‘Arab Street’ will rise against us (90% of the people on the street are foreigners), but that we will be made redundant. In the circumstances, the current turmoil is the last thing we need. In Dubai, [...]
GUEST COMMENT: It’s worth hanging in there as a spreadsheet monkey
This site has recently run some articles by junior bankers who decided the industry was too much hassle to stick with and got out to do something a little less demanding instead. While IBD clearly isn’t for everyone, I take exception to the notion that it’s diabolical toad which squats on the best years of [...]
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