There is a really great vibe at RBS and maybe you should be working there
Casualties are falling by the wayside. Jefferies, the uber-hirer to beat all hirers, has reported some nasty third quarter results. Analysts at Barclays Capital have issued a note pointing out that UBS and Credit Suisse, 'could have to shrink their investment banks to fit new [harsh] capital regimes' in Switzerland. BarCap has itself mostly finished recruiting and is dealing with uncomfortably high costs.
If you want to work for a European investment bank, that clearly leaves RBS Global Banking and Markets. And according to one of its senior employees, it's the place to be.
"There's a really great atmosphere here," he enthuses. "Senior management are very accessible and there's a lot of banter. I've worked in quite a few places and this is one of the best. There's a feeling that we're working quietly towards the goals we've set ourselves, that we'll soon be free of the negative impact of bad debts, and that employee stock holdings can only rise in price."
Entirely coincidentally, it also emerges that half RBS's US trading floor recently participated in a chicken dance to mark an employee's birthday, underscoring just how fun it can be to work there.
RBS has external cheerleaders too.
Barclays Capital upgraded it this month on the grounds that it's a "credible restructuring story".
And Michael Helsby, an analyst at BofA Merrill Lynch, sees potential upside of 39% in RBS's share price, based on rising margins, tight cost control and falling bad debts. He also thinks RBS will generate 13bn of surplus capital by 2012, and a return on equity greater than 15% by 2013.
Less promisingly, recruiters and insiders say RBS is no longer doing much in the way of hiring until at least early 2011, so there won't be much opportunity to partake of the vibe anyway.
And analysts at JPMorgan don't think RBS global banking and markets is really all that great: they're predicting a 3% decline in GBM revenues between 2010 and 2012, at a time when revenues across investment banks as a whole are forecast to rise 6.5%.
