eFinancialCareers

Despite being staffed by some of the best in their business, it seems Lehman’s European fixed income units may be shunned by the bank’s buyers. At the moment, it looks like Nomura will soon be the new owner of Lehman’s European investment banking and equities units. Failing this, Barclays Capital is also said to be waiting in the wings, with a view to bolting on Lehman's equities arm. Lehman employs/employed around 5,000... Read more

One year ago today the credit crunch entered popular vocabulary with the meltdown of two of Bear Stearns’ hedge funds. Twelve months on, newspapers remain full of speculation as to when it will come to a close. One article, in the Economist was written anonymously by a risk manager at a bank explaining the enormous failings that lead to the writedowns of the past 12 months. The tone of the... Read more

In a move that’s likely to appeal equally to sado-masochists and anyone with an inkling that ratings agencies have something to do with the credit crunch, Moody’s has promised to ‘discipline’ its staff (The Times), and sacrificed its head of structured finance. Coding errors caused the crackdown (Financial Times), but there’s more to this than a transitory crack of the whip. As the structured credit market has plummeted, so has... Read more

Predictably, it’s not an investment bank. The company doing all the hiring is Markit, the information services provider. According to its head of HR, it is currently looking to hire 40-50 people in Europe, plus another 30 in the US and additional staff in Asia Pac between now and the end of the year. Markit is a rare example of a credit-focused business for which the credit crunch has been... Read more

There were lots more redundancies last week. Everyone from managing directors (Morgan Stanley) to associates (UBS) felt the steel. Bear Stearns continued to feel the pain of integration with JPMorgan. Reuters said JP has made job offers to only 6,000 of Bear’s 14,000 staff. Dealbreaker said they were being offered less than they got at Bear. JPMorgan was also said to be closing or spinning off most of Bear’s... Read more

It’s down to regulators to reform the bonus system. And given regulators are powerless to intervene, reform looks as likely as a small village in Hampshire becoming the financial centre of the UK. Regulators are certainly making scary noises. From Mervyn King’s anti-bonus diatribe, to Sir Callum McCarthy’s call for banks to emphasise long-term performance, snarls and grunts about bonuses have been emanating from the regulatory corner for several months.... Read more

It was a good week for hedge funds – unless you were GLG. Banks were still busily lopping staff, although there were rays of hiring in commodities and – strangely enough – leveraged finance. Hedge funds provided reasons to be cheerful. Hedge Fund Research predicted investors plan to pour $200bn into hedge funds this year. ICAP launched an African hedge fund. It emerged that the replica hedge funds... Read more

Lost your job in an investment bank and want to work on the buyside? You’ll be lucky. The Financial Times ran an article yesterday which said that Pimco, the world’s biggest fixed income fund manager, has been approaching Wall Street banks that are making redundancies in the hope of hoovering up a few of their cast-offs. But before anyone gets the wrong idea, moving from an investment bank to the... Read more

At the risk of being eviscerated and dunked in a vat of scalding Asti Spumante (now that Bollinger’s out of reach), it’s time to say the unthinkable: bankers who find themselves suddenly unable to service enormous mortgage payments have only themselves to blame. The Times last week produced an anecdotal portrait of a new phenomenon – the ‘poor banker’ with a £700k interest-only mortgage acquired in the go-go year of... Read more

The latest salary survey from search firm Napier Scott suggests Asian MDs now earn more than anyone else. And equity derivatives pay better than credit. Napier Scott’s 2008 salary and bonus survey suggests managing directors working on exotic credit trading desks at tier one banks in Asia commanded average total compensation of £1.5m (US$3.0m) for 2007. This was 45% more than their counterparts in the UK, and 117% more than the relatively... Read more