M&A boom fuels corporate finance hiring

Are you an Irish M&A banker looking to return home? Recruiters say there are opportunities aplenty.

Corporate finance professionals with experience in London or New York are especially favoured by employers, according to Charlie Cullen, a consultant at Dublin-based recruiter Coxfitzsimons&wilkes.

"There's always room for people returning to the Dublin market with M&A

experience - they'll be snapped up by the big Dublin houses," Ms Cullen

said.

Employers also look at the value of deals carried out by job candidates and reward accordingly. It's not unusual for candidates at associate director level to command 100 per cent bonuses, Ms Cullen said.

However, salaries in the Republic are considerably lower than Wall Street or the City of London - Career Compass is currently advertising for an associate director to work in a Dublin corporate finance boutique on a salary of €90,000 (60,500).

Irish advisory firms' appetite for corporate finance talent follows a strong year for M&A in 2006. Early estimates for the year place the value of deals involving an Irish acquirer at €15bn, up 33 per cent on the previous year. The former telephone monopoly Eircom, for example, saw its ownership change hands for the fourth time in less than ten years.

Meanwhile Aer Lingus, another former state company, became the subject of one of the most spectacular corporate moves in Irish history, when low-cost rival Ryanair made an unsuccessful hostile bid for it only days after the government sold shares in Aer Lingus for the first time.

Who's likely to hire in 2007? AIB Corporate Finance is among those advertising for staff. Other big players in Ireland include IBI Corporate Finance, Davy Stockbrokers, Goodbody Stockbrokers and Merrion Capital.