HSBC

If you work anywhere in investment banking, you should familiarise yourself with Stuart Gulliver’s vision of the future

Today is HSBC investor day. Stuart Gulliver made a presentation. So did Sean O’Sullivan (COO) and so did Ian McKay (CFO). You may think HSBC is no massive deal in investment banking. But this would be wrong. In the first quarter, net revenues in the investment bank were $5.6bn, versus $8bn at Citi, and $4.7bn [...]

©istockphoto/Mari

Last week, the CEBR predicted bonuses will fall 48%. This week, a renowned pay consultant says they’ll rise

Alan Johnson, the Wall Street pay consultant who works with numerous Wall Street banks, and Credit Suisse has produced his first set of bonus predictions for 2012. Given his exposure to actual  banks, you’d think Johnson knows what he’s talking about. This is good, because he thinks bonuses will increase in 2012. Johnson thinks FICC professionals [...]

Stewart Carmichael

Q&A: JPMorgan’s Asia Pac CTO says JPMorgan is hiring 100 technologists in Singapore and that people like working there so much that only 3% leave

We spoke to Stewart Carmichael, chief technology officer of JPMorgan in Asia Pac. This is what he told us. Q:  Did you always want to work in financial services? No, I originally joined a technology firm because I was looking to leverage on the education I had in computer science. Twenty five years ago, there [...]

Befriend these people (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Goldman’s global head of growth markets succinctly explains how investment bankers can ensure they’re never without work in future

Goldman Sachs has been making videos and placing them on YouTube. They don’t appear particularly popular: some only have a handful of hits.  Some appear to have none at all. However, this one, featuring J. Michael Evans, its global head of ‘Growth Markets’, deserves some attention. In it, J. Michael volunteers a perspective on what [...]

topsecret

Heads of recruitment at investment banks and fund managers give their verdicts on pay and hiring for 2012

This morning we held our quarterly roundtable in London for heads of recruitment at financial services firms. Numerous investment banks’ heads of recruitment were present. So were some fund managers’. The event was confidential, so we’re not at liberty to disclose who exactly was there, nor what was discussed on a bank-specific basis. Generically, however, [...]

Nordiske-flag

Local expertise will be invaluable for international private equity firms entering the Nordic region

The appetite to recruit private equity professionals in the Nordic region is increasing as more and more international companies look to enter the market. In the last month private equity firms Advent International and HIG Europe have made some key hires in the Nordics, and the expectation is that more global firms will look to [...]

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan London is said to be an immensely political place to work. However, its people are not going to leave

What with the alleged paranoia about bonuses at JPMorgan falling 50%, you might think its London staff would be queuing up to leave. You would be mistaken. In the current environment, most headhunters say JPMorgan’s woes will make absolutely no difference to its staff turnover. “There’s so little poaching going on, that – to be [...]

Going up

BTG Pactual: A bank that’s hiring and that increased compensation 74% y-on-y in the first quarter

BTG Pactual’s first quarter results came out on Friday. They tell a happy tale. Revenues were not merely up, they were exponentially up. Sales and trading revenues rose 169% year-on-year in the first quarter. In ‘principal investments’ (AKA prop trading), they were up 303%. Overall, BTG’s revenues rose 96% in Q1. Only investment banking, down [...]

Mother of a banker

By 2014 London salaries at Goldman Sachs may be £2m, salaries at Citi may be £1.5m, salaries at Barclays £650k and salaries at Deutsche £550k

Starting at 4.30pm today, the EU Parliament’s Monetary Affairs Committee will debate and then vote upon the proposal that banking bonuses should be restricted to no more than 100% of banking salaries. By all accounts, they’re likely to vote in favour of the move. Members of the Monetary Affairs Committe include various prominent socialists: You [...]

Less firm than it used to be

Guy Hands is paying £286k retention bonuses and private equity hiring is up more than one third

Private equity has long been the holy grail of financial services careers. This may be changing with today’s revelation that Guy Hands is so stuffed he’s having to sink £20m or one fifth of his personal wealth into Terra Firma in the form of guaranteed bonuses to stop people leaving, but still. According to our [...]