Cooking up a storm in Cork

Fund administrator looking to up sticks from Dublin? Cork now has twice the number of jobs on offer.

Citco has announced plans to create an additional 150 jobs in its Cork hedge fund administration operation over the next three years - more than doubling its current headcount of 145.

Meanwhile, the other major player in Cork, Bank of New York Mellon, has exclusively revealed to us that it's also intending to beef up its Munster operation from 200 to 400 staff.

Boutique firm Apex Fund Services says it has plans to expand by an 'average of one position a month', which isn't bad when you consider it currently employs just 30.

But will the big players struggle to attract swathes of hedge fund administrators away from the capital? John Bohan, managing director of Apex, reckons so: "It's a relocation issue - there just aren't that many options here at the moment if the position doesn't work out. This is obviously changing but still, to recruit in those volumes, they'll have to a do a lot of in-house training."

Declan Quilligan, managing director of Citco Fund Services Ltd in Ireland, says he is confident that "from our existing recruitment, we will find the skilled people which the new activities will require".

Carmel Holmes, head of financial services at recruitment company Premier's Cork office, says there are other opportunities to be had: "There are a lot of traditional accounting roles here, and though there are banking positions, they are all business development posts once you get out of Dublin."

Bohan reckons fund administrators working in the mutual fund space shouldn't assume they can make the switch to hedge fund servicing: "It's a good grounding, but the mutual fund area is nearly completely automated now. With hedge funds, you need a stronger accounting background and you'll be exposed to a wider variety of securities and derivatives, so a good product is an advantage."

Geraldine Collins, a consultant at Sigmar recruiters in Cork, says there is an appetite to move to Munster: "A few years ago, a lot of graduates would have had no option but to move to Dublin. Now there are a number of opportunities to move back."

But they should brace themselves for a pay cut. Holmes says pay is typically 10-15% less than they would get in the capital, but cost of living is obviously a lot cheaper.