eFinancialCareers

When the going gets tough, the tough start hedge funds. Canadian Hedge Watch, a trade publication, is increasingly hearing from financial professionals eager to strike out on their own, says Daryl Ching, a company vice president. "We are seeing a high volume of people trying to start hedge funds," he tells eFinancialCareers News. These budding masters and mistresses of the universe are counting on support from their friends and families, along with... Read more

To laid-off financial analysts, the federal government is starting to look pretty appealing. About 400 people - double the tally from similar events last year - have signed up for a job fair in New York later this month featuring recruiters from nine government agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the FBI, reports Bloomberg News. The jobs are attractive even though they pay less than private... Read more

Bank of America, which has received $45 billion in government aid, plans to give some investment bankers raises of as much as 70 percent as soon as next month. Bloomberg News says the Charlotte-based bank may increase the annual base pay for some managing directors to about $300,000 from $180,000. Salaries for less-senior directors would climb to about $250,000 from $150,000, and vice presidents would get $200,000, up from about $125,000. In... Read more

Mindful of controversy in the U.S. surrounding the pay of Wall Street bankers, Canadian regulators are examining whether compensation practices at financial services firms here are encouraging excessive risk taking. Jean Paul Duval, spokesman for the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, took pains to put out this review isn't necessarily going to lead to mandates to cut pay at Canadian banks, which so far have weathered the economic downturn... Read more

Add Bernard Madoff to the long list of other factors pushing corporations to beef up their compliance teams. Amid a dearth of deal-related work, blue-chip law firms are laying off attorneys in unprecedented numbers. Meanwhile, compliance is shaping up as one of a few bright spots in the wake of the Madoff scandal, says American Lawyer's AmLaw Daily. Recruiters at a recent New York City Bar Association job-fest suggested that out-of-work lawyers... Read more

The ugly face of cross-border protectionism is hitting the U.S. financial industry and business schools, forcing Bank of America to rescind job offers it made to as many as 50 graduating M.B.A. students who aren't U.S. citizens. BofA is the first bank to take this step, reports the Financial Times. The bank blamed conditions laid out in its bailout deal. A provision of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill prevents financial... Read more

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. has hiring plans. According to Investment Dealers' Digest, the New York-based company plans to hire 100 people for its fixed-income business alone this year. Already, the firm's hired 20 specialists for a developing high-yield bond business, and is bringing on as many as 25 investment bankers, along with sales and trading professionals. "The talent pool out there is very deep right now and the opportunity to grow... Read more

Students in MBA programs at Canadian universities are hunkering down as the economy worsens. Both job and internship opportunities appear to be dwindling as companies keep a clamp on hiring. Many MBA students plan to enter the financial services business, according to officials at these schools. Though Canadian banks have outperformed their U.S. counterparts and recently posted strong quarterly earnings, recruiters have said their hiring is less robust than it's been in... Read more

For years, people in the Philadelphia area eager for high Wall Street salaries have endured brutally long commutes to New York. Now, residents of the Big Apple are taking a shine to their neighbor to the south. Laid-off Wall Street workers are increasingly looking for opportunities in the City of Brotherly Love, which seems like an undiscovered country to many New Yorkers even though it's less than 100 miles away. Philadelphia... Read more

Asking the boss for a raise is getting harder on Bay Street as banks keep a close eye on costs and the Canadian economy continues to weaken. So far, banks have avoided the uproar over executive compensation seen in the U.S., where financial institutions are receiving billions in government aid to keep them afloat. But Towers Perrin, the benefits consulting firm, found 25 percent of the financial services firms it surveyed... Read more

Swiss banking giant UBS hired 200 brokers in the U.S. during the fourth quarter, according to Bloomberg News. The bank poached a five-member team from the Dallas office of Goldman Sachs Group with $4 billion in assets under management, and a team of the same size from Morgan Stanley's Houston office with $2.1 billion in assets under management. UBS was willing to write some big checks to attract these workers, Bloomberg... Read more

Add "CHA" to the alphabet soup of professional designations available to financial professionals. The Chartered Hedge Fund Associate certification began enrolling candidates in June 2008. On its Web site, the program describes itself as the "only certification program designed exclusively for those professionals who work in the hedge fund industry or for wealth management and service providers who would like to better understand and serve hedge funds as clients." The CHA will... Read more

Hiring isn't a top priority for Canadian banks as they face a worsening economy. While they've managed to avoid Wall Street-size layoffs so far, they've notably slowed hiring. Says Michel Verdoold, president of recruiter Brunel Multec in Toronto: "The orders that we had we were able to fill, but we were not given any new assignments." Verdoold's comments were echoed by Michael Gooley of Robert Half International in Toronto. He's finding... Read more

State Street Corp., long one of Boston's most stable financial employers, has been cutting staff as the economy faltered. Now it's facing further trouble after a string of write-downs erased most of its profit in the fourth quarter and the bank disclosed an additional $9.1 billion in unrealized losses on various investments. Some analysts expect State Street to raise additional capital. This explains why it's looking to cut costs including personnel.... Read more

Finding a job in hedge funds and private equity firms, difficult under the best of circumstances, keeps getting harder. Financial News is reporting that Cerberus Capital Management, whose returns have been hurt by its investments in finance company GMAC and the automaker Chrysler, is cutting 10 percent of its staff of 250. Cerberus didn't comment on the newspaper's claims, though it didn't deny them either. For the displaced Cerberus workers to find... Read more

Canada's financial services sector, one of the few in the world not to seek a government bailout, is urging the province of Ontario to lower its corporate tax rate as the region's economy slows and rumors of layoffs loom. So far, financial institutions in Toronto, North America's fourth-largest center for financial services, have avoided the massive job cuts seen at their U.S. counterparts. Recruiters, though, note that employees are growing increasingly... Read more

As the chief investment officer of the student-run M.A. Wright Fund, Rice University M.B.A. student Will Shen was able to post returns that beat his fund’s benchmarks. Translating that success outside of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management is proving to be difficult. The 31-year-old, who chose asset management after he found dental school and the import/export business did not suit him, is in a better position than many... Read more

Job seekers in Toronto worried about rising layoffs aren't going to get much of a break early next year. A new report by Manpower Canada predicts a "conservative hiring climate for the upcoming quarter" in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors. The staffing firm's survey of more than 1,800 Canadian employers found 16 percent expect to increase hiring, 9 percent plan to cut staff and 72 percent plan no change... Read more

State Street Corp. and Wellington Management have recently announced job cuts, adding to the increasingly gloomy holiday season in Boston's Financial District. State Street, the world's largest custodian of assets, said Dec. 3 it would cut between 1,600 and 1,800 positions between now and the first quarter. On that same day, closely held Wellington Management announced plans to cut 10 percent of its 2,100-person staff, according to the Boston Globe. These cuts... Read more

More and more, Bay Street's financial services workers are waiting for the ax to fall. Though job losses here aren't nearly as common as at U.S. banks, Canadian firms have been cutting jobs as they take huge write-offs in the wake of earnings declines. BMO Capital Markets, CIBC World Markets and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan have each trimmed their workforces, according to media reports. Smaller firms such as Canaccord Capital,... Read more