Hiring to slow after Moscow shooting

Earlier this week one recruiter told us Russian capital markets were set for a flood of hiring in 2007. The assassination of Andrei Kozlov could change that.

"Russia will be huge next year," said the London-based recruiter on Wednesday afternoon. "The country is seen as a lot more stable and we're getting a lot of searches for equity sales and trading roles for 2007 coming out of there."

The shooting of Kozlov, a reformist central banker on Wednesday night, suggests Russia isn't quite so stable after all. Olga Selivanova, managing director of London-based search firm Morgan Hunt says it's unlikely to impact the hiring decisions of banks already based in the country, but may yet dissuade others from going in.

"Private equity investors and hedge funds are likely to be the major hirers in Russia for 2007," says Selivanova. "The assassination was a shock and may scare off some of those companies from investing. But worse things have happened in the past."

Unlike the other recruiter, Selivanova says most investment banks are fully staffed in Russia anyway. "There's been huge amounts of hiring in the last couple of years, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Credit Suisse all hiring at the same time across sales and trading in equities fixed income."

She says major newcomers are unlikely in the country in 2007: "You'll see people moving from one firm to another, but it won't be anything big."