Is Dubai really a hiring oasis?
Lehman's collapse has only exacerbated UK bankers' appetite for swapping the gloom of London for the sunny shores of Dubai. Unfortunately, those looking to move to an international bank may find the climate just as arid in the Gulf as it is here, and the flood of new talent means the silly money season is over. Unless you want to go native, that is.
"There are undoubtedly plenty of jobs, but not necessarily in global banks," says Peter Greaves, director of financial services at Dubai-based headhunter McArthur Murray. "They're under pressure to transfer their own people across, and should they want to hire people externally they have to put forward a very compelling case if they're firing people in London."
The Financial Times reports that UK staff in bulge-bracket banks are "queuing up" to move internally to Dubai. This means those on the outside are really having to up their game, says Darryl Hubert, manager at Joslin Rowe International.
"We've seen a massive increase in applications to the GCC, and they have really done their homework on the region," he says. "What's more, we're talking to a number of clients who are looking to set up operations in the Gulf in Q1 2009."
Six months ago, during a poaching frenzy in the region, MDs were commanding a basic of around $1m and sometimes being offered double their salary to move, say recruiters. This figure has now shrunk to $500k-$750k.
"People were demanding guaranteed bonuses as recently as three months ago," says Greaves. "You can forget that now." (Unless perhaps you're a Lehman banker moving to Nomura.)
It's a different matter within domestic players, though. Shuaa Capital's combination of increased bonus payouts and massive staff increases dented its Q2 profits by 10%. EFG Hermes says it's increased staff costs by 188% on last year in an attempt to keep hold of staff, and Bahraini bank Gulf Finance House has doubled salary expenses to lure quality international bankers.
What's more, Financial News reports that Bahrain-based Global Bank Corporation is offering packages worth as much as $2m to top Western talent.
But sometimes experience in Western markets can count against you, says Anthony Southam, managing director of Dubai-based Catalyst Search & Selection: "The markets here are a lot more vanilla. We get some fantastic CVs from people who have been working with complex products, but the business here just isn't developed to accommodate them yet."
