An investment bank is born, and may be still hiring juniors

After its gestation and birth in 2009 and 2010 and some probable potty training in early 2011, yesterday was the day on which Otkritie Securities Limited presented itself to the public.

"An investment bank is born," proclaimed Roman Lokhov, CEO. "We have created a new entity and finished the formation of a full service investment bank. This will be the year that we break through."

The attendant members of the press, who were on a strict diet of champagne and favourable facts about the Russian economy, were in no mood to disagree.

As we suggested earlier in the week, Otkritie could count among the hirers this year: it recruited five fixed income people in January and last year proclaimed its intention of recruiting 90 people for an IPO, seemingly scheduled for 2013.

Any senior people busting to work for an infant investment bank which aspires to a public listing and could therefore be giving out lucrative equity stakes, may have missed an opportunity however. Lokhov said Otkritie's hiring is now 80-90% done. The investment bank currently employs 80 people working in London and 120 people globally.

Superficially, Otkritie seems to have been quite keen on hiring Russians: of five senior staff at the coming out ceremony, three were Russian and one was Howard Snell, the former UK chief executive of Troika Dialog. Appearances may be deceiving however: somewhere on the floor below were apparently Columbians, Indians, Venezuelans and Japanese.

Nor is Otkritie paying its London bonuses in roubles, which is a shame as it's predicting the rouble will rise.

And nor is the hiring necessarily over. After the presentation, it transpired that Okritie hasn't finished recruiting after all: it's just finished recruiting senior staff.

Now that the top ranks are replete, there will be need for some junior and mid-ranking people too. The focus is likely to be fixed income. It's even possible that the newborn Otkritie will suck up some the junior fixed income people who could yet emerge from UBS.