Monstrous apparition as banks check up on PE applicants (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nightmare for junior corporate financiers with private equity aspirations: banks are identifying and pre-emptively sacking them

There’s one thing worse than being an analyst or 1st year associate spending your every waking hour on pitchbooks, and that’s being an analyst or associate spending your every waking hour on pitchbooks whilst trying to time for interviewing with private equity funds. Recruiters working with private equity funds in London say there’s a lot [...]

goldman-sachs-logo

Does Goldman Sachs need to hire some new salespeople and researchers?

Things are not what they used to be at Goldman Sachs.  As we reported a few weeks ago, transformational changes are reportedly taking place there, changes which are mostly alleged to involve a big focus on electronic trading and quiet culling of superfluous salespeople and trading staff. However, a comment in Financial News today suggests [...]

Alleged size of bonuses at Coutts

Coutts is hiring. Be aware that it only wants senior people and may pay a very big base and quite a small bonus

Coutts has let it be known that it’s looking for private bankers. In today’s Financial Times, Michael Morley, chief executive of Coutts UK, elaborates on the bank’s appetite for hiring. Morley says Coutts wants ‘senior executives’ in the UK, the Middle East, Asia, Switzerland and eastern Europe. 20 senior executives have come already, says Morley. [...]

Africa

There are plenty of opportunities with the World Bank in Africa

When looking for a job, there is something to be said for aiming high. Positions that seem unattainable and institutions that appear out of reach may actually be within the grasp of a determined, resourceful and well-informed individual. Not everyone realises, for example, that the World Bank may have its headquarters in Washington DC but [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

Mushroom cloud

10 important repercussions of JPMorgan’s CIO blow-up

If you don’t know already (which is unlikely), JPMorgan has fallen suddenly from its pedestal of earning an average of more than $4bn a quarter for the past two years. The bank held a conference call last night to coincide with the release of its Form 10q to confess that it will post a loss [...]

Standard-chartered

Standard Chartered shifting rain-maker to Johannesburg

In 2009, when Standard Chartered hired David Law to co-head its wholesale banking unit for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan in Dubai, it was considered something of a coup. Law had moved out to the region from London in 2008 to oversee Morgan Stanley’s Middle Eastern investment banking operations, and by all accounts [...]