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Monday was Clifford Sacks’ first day as Ceo South Africa and head of Pan-African equities for Renaissance Capital, the Russian investment bank that is expanding aggressively in emerging markets. Before joining RenCap, Sacks, who is South African, was co-Ceo for SA and Sub-Saharan Africa at BoA Merrill Lynch, a well-respected investment banker with twenty years’ experience and a deep knowledge of African equities. His task is to open and staff a... Read more

In one of the more bizarre recent job moves, the former co-chief of global credit at Citigroup, Mark Watson, has re-emerged as chief executive of Malta's Mediterranean Bank. This begs the question whether the island is keen to attract UK financial talent. The simple answer is that it does want to tap UK financial services expertise, but possibly not in such glamorous roles as Watson's new post. Mediterranean Bank... Read more

Two weeks ago we said prime broking recruitment was looking a little wild. Now it’s frothing at the mouth. In the past few weeks, Citigroup has hired a new head of global trading for its prime finance unit (the sixth senior prime broking hire it’s made this year), JPMorgan has reshuffled management of its prime broking business in anticipation of growth, UBS and Morgan Stanley have swapped prime broking heads, HSBC... Read more

Expansion into Africa is serving South African banks well and providing significant opportunities for employment. Standard Bank, the continent’s largest, has pursued the most active and successful African diversification strategy. In 2008 profit from its African operations increased by 46% to R1.8bn, a performance Standard Bank Ceo Jacko Maree has described as “unbelievable”. Determined to strengthen its footprint in the 16 countries outside South Africa it operates in and also... Read more

It’s tempting to conclude that the back office is being unfairly targeted for redundancy. Most of the latest 1,800 cuts revealed at Morgan Stanley will come from support functions, Citigroup plans to trim its operations, Bank of America/Merrill is set to scale-back admin teams and Lazard’s intention to reduce staff by 10% will mainly affect the back office. And 2,300 staff affected by RBS's latest round of cuts are... Read more

Citigroup bankers won’t be informed of their bonuses until the end of this month, but as anyone who read Vikram Pandit’s New Year’s Eve memo will already know, the Citigroup bonus pool is ‘dramatically lower than last year.’ The overall implication of the memo appeared to be that a lot of Citi bankers will receive little or no bonus for 2008. However, lest people in Citi’s viable businesses started wondering whether... Read more

Fund managers faced with large redemptions and shrinking assets under management are putting IT spend on the back burner, and hiring has slowed to a snail’s pace. The drop isn’t as sharp as it is in sectors in the securities and investment space, however. US fund managers are expected to cut technology spend by 4% in 2009 and European firms to trim budgets by 2% in the year ahead, according... Read more

Investment banks may be struggling, but their custody arms are quietly posting stellar revenues and hiring enthusiastically. In the first quarter of this year, revenues from Citigroup’s Global Transaction Services arm rose 42% as against last year, with assets under custody swelling 21%. JPMorgan’s treasury and securities services business saw revenues rise 53% in Q1 from this time last year. Leading custodian State Street has also seen its servicing... Read more

Automation in the custody industry might offload some of the donkey work, but it doesn’t look like great news for some jobs. The Dublin office of Fortis Prime Fund Solutions is spearheading a new automated reconciliation platform that it will eventually migrate across to its 18 offices worldwide. “We began with the Dublin office as a proof of concept to senior management, to understand the merits of installing such a... Read more

Commiserations if your bonus was down – most were apparently static or up. That may not hold true at UBS. Research from recruitment firm Morgan McKinley suggests a hefty 43% of people in the City received bonuses that were equal to last year’s payouts, and 37% saw a rise. A mere 20% were paid down. Even if your bonus was in the depreciating minority, it may not be a fortuitous moment to... Read more

Which banks and bankers are suffering the most? No prizes for guessing… ACUTE PAIN 1. Merrill Lynch Share price: down 44% since January 2007. Bonus per head*: $181.3k, down 25% on 2006. Net profit for the first nine months of 2007: $1.9bn, down 61%. Redundancies: none announced so far, but exit of chief exec Stan O’Neal is imminent. 2. Bear Stearns Share price: down 38% since January 2007. Bonus per head*: $407.6k, down 20% on 2006. Net... Read more

Spare a thought for the classes of 2007 and 2008. It seems investment banking jobs are proving hard to come by. A student at a leading European business school says banks are still coming to present on campus, but that with the exception of Credit Suisse, few appear to have any full-time places left for 2008: “Places have already been filled by last year’s summer interns. If you missed the boat... Read more

Most people sit around passively waiting for the pink slip. Has Stan O’Neal gone for pre-emptive action? Ever since Merrill revealed a $2.3bn 3Q net loss earlier this week, there have been calls for Stan to step aside. Now the New York Times says Stan’s head has moved closer to the block after he allegedly broached a merger with Charlotte-based Wachovia without first getting the approval of Merrill’s board. Putting aside the... Read more

Rising taxes and falling returns are taking their toll on the co-investing craze. “The amended capital gains tax rules will impact people participating in company co-investment schemes that qualify for business taper relief,” says Chris Sanger, head of tax policy at Ernst & Young. “Assets disposed of before 6 April 2008 will be taxed at 10%, while those disposed of from 7 April 2008 will be taxed at 18%.” Co-investing is nothing... Read more