The renewed appeal of working for a local firm

Domestic players in the Middle East seem to have suddenly become very adept at attracting high level banking talent away from big international firms. It helps, of course, that they're offering guaranteed bonuses.

"International banks have largely frozen recruitment, which makes it much easier for local firms to attract top talent," says Adam El-Balawi, director, Gulf at headhunters Principal Search. "They're offering attractive incentives, be that guaranteed bonuses or long-term share schemes. International banks are unable to match them at the moment."

There have been a large number of moves away from multi-nationals towards domestic firms lately. Most recently, Abraaj Capital (which is on something of an aggressive expansion) took on Ashok Aram as managing director - he was a 15-year Deutsche Bank veteran.

Deutsche also lost Philip Southwell, who took the post of chief executive officer at EFG Hermes. Emirates NBD hired Robbert Jan Voogt from Fortis and Gary Duggan from Merrill Lynch to lead its new private banking division and Citigroup lost its regional MD, Mohammed Al-Shroogi, to Bahrain-based Investcorp.

Then there's the local sovereign wealth funds, which have attracted talent from the likes of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Rothschild this year.

"There's always been the desire to take top tier international talent, but it's become a lot easier in the past few months," says Alex Cormack, director, head of Middle East at executive search firm Sheffield Haworth. "People are either disillusioned with their existing firm or their role has simply become a lot less viable."

But Omar Taha, managing director of headhunters The S&T Group, believes it's simply a case of international talent becoming more savvy to the way the region works.

"Once in the region, many senior managers realise that the local players are simply more established than the international firms and that they will be navigate through the region a lot better," he says.