Jobs roundup: Banks hire equities staff

A weekly snapshot of movements in the job market:

Call it coincidence, but as stock markets in Paris, Frankfurt and London hit new highs for the year, equities recruitment was one of the prominent features of last week's hiring market.

ABN Amro, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW), and two fund managers, Brunswick Asset Management and Man Investments, were among those recruiting in equity-related areas.

ABN Amro continued its recent hiring spree by adding five analysts to its pan-European equity sales team. It also made three hires in trading, sales and trading, and sales for its European cash trading desk.

This followed the recruitment of 20 people to the Dutch bank's Asian equities operation the week before.

DrKW bolstered its equity capital markets team with a new director and head of corporate block trading. This was DrKW's third senior hire in less than three months, since John St. John joined the bank as global head of equity capital markets in June

There is some confidence that conditions in equity capital markets will improve during the remainder of 2003. The first half of the year was dire, with fees down 43% and equity issuance of $33.8 million, half that for the same period of 2002.

Morley Fund Management added two fund managers to its pan-European equity team. Brunswick Asset Management hired a new chief executive and head of equity investments.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the current weakness in debt market issuance, there was also hiring in debt capital markets.

Mizuho International recruited Mark Fisher, formerly of ING, as head of its client-related business in its debt capital markets team.

SG, which has been seeking to strengthen its European position outside France, added a vice president to its debt sales team. ING recruited two Moscow-based debt specialists to its debt capital markets team to focus on origination.

Last week was also marked by another move along the route to combining debt and equity capital markets operations. Merrill Lynch followed Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in forming an integrated debt and equity capital markets global team.