Wealth management hiring slowing down
This year, a number of wealth managers have set up in the GCC and this, together with some big ticket hires, would suggest the market is relatively buoyant. However, sadly this doesn't seem to be the case.
Carne Global Financial Services is the latest wealth management firm to gain a DIFC licence, and Pictet and Cie - the Swiss private bank - did the same towards the tail end of January.
What's more, First Gulf Bank is to offer wealth management services within its new Qatar operation. Tijari Private Bank has also teamed up with SEI to target Kuwaiti investors.
Among the bigger players, JPMorgan appointed Paolo Moscovici as the new chief of its private bank in the Middle East in February and Barclays Wealth named Sharad Nair as director of its international private banking team in the Middle East.
However, the recruitment market in this sector is far from active at the moment.
Noha El Shazly, country managing partner for the UAE, Egypt and Lebanon, at headhunters GulfBankers, says: "We're seeing very little recruitment in wealth management currently. A lot of the smaller wealth managers are closing down, and there's more of an emphasis on gathering deposits rather than selling investment products."
In fact, it could even be optimistic to suggest that the international firms coming to the region are likely to indulge in any recruitment, says Michael Morcos, partner at executive search firm EWK International.
"Firms are generally just moving people from one region to the GCC," he says. "There's very little indigenous recruitment going on. Some wealth management companies are setting up locally to target high-net-worth individuals, but I think they will find it hard to win new clients."
Wealth managers are open to opportunistically hiring top talent, reckons Barbara van Meir, director of financial services at headhunters Ingram & Partners, but there's very little strategic recruitment to any significant degree.
"The people we speak to are suggesting it won't pick up until Q4 of this year," she says.
