Betty Buyside: Pregnant at last....but share scheme may be ill-conceived

Two sets of positive news for once. The first is literally positive - the thin blue line was wonderfully clear. So Anthony Academic and I are to be parents.

My own parents will be thrilled. The people who might not be thrilled are my employers - though they can't be the first insurance company to have one of their asset management team in the family way.

It doesn't help that I am one of only three female front office employees and the other two have much older children. I am worried that I might tip the recruiting policy into overdrive and we will in future only employ lesbians and post-menopausal women.

I haven't yet swapped my usual tube reading to the small print of the office maternity policy. Apart from anything else, it's a bit early - I shall wait until the magical date of 13 weeks into the pregnancy first, to see if this baby is really going to appear.

In any case, I'm far too busy reading the small print of the new company share scheme. That's the other positive news - we have finally been issued with shares in the company as part of our compensation.

Despite the Chancellor's generosity in establishing low-tax EMI (Enterprise Management Initiative) schemes and taper relief, you would be amazed at how many City of London firms do not offer shares to their employees as a regular part of their compensation. And when they do, they often do not conform to the EMI scheme.

This is for two main reasons. One is that shares are more usually used to lessen the corporate pain of bonuses, and stop employees leaving - up to half of bonuses on the sellside are regularly paid in shares.

The other is that EMI schemes really only work for UK-based companies and these days it's almost impossible to find a genuinely British company in the Square Mile.

Of course there haven't been many bonuses paid on the sellside this year, British company or not. Witness the exodus from HSBC where it has been ridiculously easy for other companies to help themselves to whole swathes of the research department.

Of course it hasn't helped that Mark Brown, the rather gorgeous global head of research at HSBC, departed several weeks ago and is now returning to one of his former employers in August.

What is he doing with four months off, I wonder? Sammy Salesman, who has miraculously reappeared at some 2nd tier broker, tells me that Mark is rumoured to be in training for the Vauxhall Four Peaks Challenge in July, together with three other mad individuals.

Kevin Darlington, head of economics & strategy at ABN AMRO, Robert Lind, senior economist there, and Neil Kirton, the rather straight chap who is now heading up equities at Bridgewell Securities (you know, they used to call themselves Gilbert Elliott) are apparently joining Mark to spend 48 hours climbing four of the highest peaks in England, Wales, Scotland & Ireland.

Rather them than me. I shall be using this pregnancy as an excuse to stand on the escalator at Liverpool Street rather than walk up it, and to get the lift to the second floor at work..

I wonder whether Mark was ever given any shares in HSBC? Even if he was, I bet he had to leave some of them behind when he quit.

I confess that I used to quite fancy Mark Brown but he was sadly never on the secondary market when I was still a primary offering. Plus I doubt that I am clever enough to go out with him.

You can contact Betty at: bettybuyside@efinancialcareers.com