eFinancialCareers

Yesterday’s unnerving bonus revelations from UBS have become more unnerving still now that there’s been time to digest them. The Times reports that as part of the new malus system for recouping bonuses in the event of everything from losses (group or division), asset writedowns, personal misconduct and missed performance targets, it will soon be possible for UBS senior bankers and 'risk takers' to accrue a negative bonus balance. The... Read more

Laying off 52,000 staff sounds very, very bad. The Times points out that Citigroup’s move ranks as one of the biggest corporate culls in history – outdone only by IBM’s eradication of 60,000 in staff in 1993. However, there are a few palliatives for Citigroup’s poor employees. Prime among them is the fact that around 27,000 of the proposed headcount reductions are to come from failing to replace staff who leave,... Read more

Citigroup bankers who filed in to attend Vikram Pandit’s town hall presentation today, hoping for a few platitudes about how the bank has some of the most talented people in the industry, were sorely disappointed. Instead, Pandit announced another 50,000 redundancies on top of the 23,000 he's announced already this year. The Wall Street Journal quotes Citigroup chairman Win Bischoff, who told a separate Dubai business forum that all banks... Read more

UBS has taken a firsts step to doing away with the concept of annual bonuses. The Swiss bank today unveiled details of a new bonus scheme, under which ‘top executives’ will receive (at the very, very most) a third of each year’s bonus at the end of the year in question. The rest will be put aside and only awarded if the bank/employee performs well and behaves nicely in subsequent... Read more

First came the news that RBS is cutting several thousand people from its global banking and markets division. Now it transpires that Citigroup is cutting 10,000 people from its investment bank and elsewhere. RBS is saying nothing about whether the redundancy rumours are true, or where the axe might fall, but Pesto was heard on the Today Progamme this morning saying that layoffs in the UK will be limited to... Read more

Morgan Stanley is following in the footsteps of Goldman Sachs and cutting another 10% of its staff. After making 4,400 redundancies in June, the US bank now plans to make another 10% of cuts in its institutional securities group, and 9% of people redundant in asset management. Financial News says Mack is cutting back on prime brokerage, proprietary trading, principal investing and commercial real estate origination, and building up in... Read more

Somewhere is hiring. Brewin Dolphin Investment Banking is officially looking for staff. Naturally, it is unwilling to talk numbers. Graeme Summers, head of investment banking at the firm, says hiring will be opportunistic, “depending on the quality and calibre of candidates”. The numbers involved are unlikely to make any impression on the thousands of people losing their jobs elsewhere: Brewin Dolphin employs just 60 people. Another five are definitely joining... Read more

The financial services employment market is getting worse, not better. The latest figures from the predominantly middle and back-office recruitment firm Morgan McKinley show the number of new job vacancies falling 9% between September and October. October vacancies were down 48% on the same month in 2007. Candidate vacancies fell at the same time (maybe because everyone's deciding to become a smallholder in the Outer Hebrides?), meaning competition for jobs hasn't... Read more

Stung into action by Goldman’s falling share price, chief executive Lloyd Blankfein has come out fighting. According to Blankfein, Goldman’s transformation into a bank holding company will not stop it from “doing anything we have done as an investment bank”. For the record, he also points out that, “Some of the biggest opportunities this firm has had came from times of stress,” promises that he won’t be provoked into “doing... Read more

The state is hiring bankers, and not just for the new unit set up to handle the taxpayers’ contribution to the banking system. Financial services professionals who are on the street could also consider sending their CVs to the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA). The PADA may not have the profile of the new Treasury unit set up to handle taxpayers’ £37bn investment, but it does have jobs. Angela... Read more

As ever, it looks like banks have waited until Q4 before slashing headcount in a manner that in any way approximates to the fall in their revenues. So, if you’re one of the people let go in the months to come, will you have any right to a portion of this year’s bonus? Sadly, the answer is probably no. Despite a promising article in this week’s Financial News, which seems... Read more

Having exhausted their appetite for structured credit specialists, it seems banks are now opting for something a little less arcane: good old work-out experts who can help turn ailing businesses around. The Financial Times says banks’ commercial lending arms are shopping for the kinds of work-out experience more commonly found in private equity funds. The impetus appears to be debt for equity swaps, which could leave lenders holding equity in... Read more

So you thought Lehman bankers left to twiddle their thumbs or pick up big guarantees over at Nomura? So did we, but according to an article in last weekend’s Financial Times, this is not necessarily so. The FT says that some of Lehman’s traders were retained by PwC to unwind its trading positions and that these lucky individuals received a ‘new pay package with a hefty bonus component if they... Read more

Not entirely surprisingly, bankers in London and New York are expected to suffer more than those elsewhere come bonus time. International financial services headhunter Options Group is predicting a 45-50% reduction in payouts in the two cities, while Dubai bankers will apparently see their pay chopped by only 10-15%. Asia Pac staff are expected to fall in the middle of the two, with 35-40% reductions in bonuses predicted. Eric... Read more

It’s with great sadness that we announce that Tom Seaden, one of London’s leading financial services executive search consultants, died yesterday, aged only 45. Tom spent four years as head of Whitney Group in London, before moving to Korn/Ferry International last month. Always helpful, always knowledgeable, and always discreet, Tom was a force to be reckoned with in City headhunting, and will be sadly missed. He leaves behind a wife and son.