Corporate finance: Emerging markets offer rewards

Corporate financiers who want to work in far flung locations could soon have plenty of chance to do so.

According to Reuters, a new study by accounting firm KPMG shows Britain's blue chip companies have ignored emerging markets as a source of takeover targets.

Given that top corporates in continental Europe acquired fast growing companies in Brazil, Russia and China at five times the rate of their counterparts in the UK, KPMG is reported as saying Britain's blue chips could fall behind in the growth stakes.

The potential offered by emerging markets is also underscored by another Reuters interview with David Livingstone at HSBC. Livingstone is quoted as saying that booming emerging markets have helped the bank get some payback from building up in investment banking.

Gerry Demopoulos, a consultant at recruitment firm Delta Executive Search, which is looking for junior corporate financiers in the Middle East and North Africa, says banks are increasingly interested in locating emerging markets teams on the ground rather than in London. "Execution is increasingly taking place locally," he says. And in many cases these staff are being relocated from the City: "In places like the Middle East, the local guys just aren't good enough," he adds.