Jobs roundup: HSBC to wield equities axe, SWIP hires
HSBC intends to radically restructure its equities business and is likely to shed hundreds of jobs, current and former senior employees said last week.
They said the bank was seeking voluntary redundancies and also planned compulsory ones as it retreated from agency broking to focus on proprietary trading, derivatives and origination.
Hires in the past week included Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) expanding its UK equities team to 13. Joel Marks and David Urch were appointed investment directors in equity fund management; they came from Insight Investment Management and Martin Currie respectively.
The moves came after SWIP hired two other investment directors to its equity fund management team in August. Legal and General Investment Management, Putnam Investments (European) Insight Investment, and Invesco Perpetual have also boosted European equities teams during the past six months.
The need for investment management talent in equities was underlined by a report from Russell/Mellon Caps, a consultancy. Despite the strength of UK equity markets, the report said UK equity funds performed dismally during the third quarter of 2003.
In the world beyond equities, senior hires were made in the past week in debt capital markets, both at the expense of UBS. Goldman Sachs recruited Niccolo Ragnini from UBS as executive director in its European debt capital markets team in London. HSBC hired John O'Mahony from UBS to lead its European credit strategy team.
Lehman bolstered its new generalist asset management and equity products sales team with the appointment of Marc Joudren, the former head of Goldman's global products group.
In investment banking, Deutsche Bank hired Alan Brown from HSBC as a director in its European utilities team.
While investment banking redundancies appear to have tailed off, there were signs that the pain is not over for back office staff.
ABN Amro appointed Hugh-Scott Barrett as its first chief investment officer. Barrett is to head a new unit, Group Shared Services, charged with consolidating back office operations such as human resources and IT, which are currently split between divisions.
Meanwhile, Lazard, the investment bank, which is exclusive talks to acquire Panmure, the UK stockbroking arm of West LB, is expected to make some back office staff redundant if its bid is successful.
