Would you consider a move to Saudi?
OK, so Saudi Arabia has been a hard sell at the best of times and the shrinking investment banking pool and deteriorating economic situation there hardly adds to its appeal. However, international investment banks are still setting up in the kingdom, and may have to look to western markets to staff their operations.
Barclays and Sociéte Générale are the latest firms to kick-start Saudi operations a time when revenues in the kingdom are falling through the floor, following a similar move by UBS in July.
In the first half of 2009, banks made just $7m in the region, according to figures from Dealogic, which is a stark contrast to the $115m generated during the same period last year.
This has not gone unnoticed by investment banks in the region, and in May Deutsche Bank pared back its Saudi team.
Abdulrahman al-Tuwaijri, chairman of the Capital Markets Authority told the Financial Times that firms: "Are not looking at this year or next year - they are looking at the potential of this country."
There's also the fact that it takes a couple of years for the CMA to approve the licences, of course, which makes it tempting to conclude that the banks could simply be starting representative offices for suitcase bankers to man until things start to pick up again. But headhunters think not.
Alex Cormack, director - head of Middle East at Sheffield Haworth, says: "International banks are definitely looking to add staff. Obviously, Saudi has experienced problems in the last six months, but it's still a large part of investment banks' Middle East growth ambitions."
These problems include an economy with much shallower growth prospects for 2009, and increasing troubles for large family offices, the depth of which is hard to gauge because of the relative lack of transparency in the country, which impacts the financial sector.
Nonetheless, it's still difficult to find investment banking talent, says Ian Thomas, head of international recruitment at Banque Saudi Fransi: "There simply isn't a big enough pool of qualified Saudi nationals. Any bank coming here will struggle to find and maintain good teams locally and will have to import a lot of them."
Bill Allum, managing director of headhunters Execuzen, adds: "Initially I think firms will focus on the sales and origination side of the business. But some banks are also looking at substantial corporates in the region, with a view to offering them more sophisticated products and they'll eventually need people on the ground to do this."
