BNP Paribas hops on the IB bandwagon in Africa

If you are an investment banker, you could do a lot worse than heading for Africa. Local and foreign banks are fiercely competing and recruiting to grab as big a slice of the growing business flows in the continent as they possibly can. Anyone with African experience - or anyone with a good CV, a valid passport and an open mind - can have the luxury of choice.

"It is definitely a trend," says Phryne Williams, managing director of Capital Assignments, a specialist financial services recruitment firm in Johannesburg. "There has been significant restructuring and beefing up of IB teams recently. The focus is Africa and the race is definitely on!"

Barclays, Credit Suisse, Renaissance Capital, Standard Chartered, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup are just some of the foreign banks that have been taking on staff and growing their presence. The latest to jump on the African IB bandwagon is BNP Paribas, France's largest bank and one of the top six in the world with a presence in 80 countries and over 200,000 employees worldwide.

BNP Paribas has had a representative office in South Africa since 1991 as a base to prospect for business opportunities in the continent and has a retail presence, mainly in French-speaking African countries. But now it has decided on a significant expansion.

"It is definitely our project to expand our presence in South Africa in the coming months," Nicolas Mignot, the bank's head of structured trade finance for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said this week. "We are talking about improving our investment banking presence" and looking for opportunities in South Africa but also in neighbouring countries like Namibia, Botswana and Malawi, he added. The Johannesburg office, which currently only has ten employees, will be expanded but it's still too early to give details and numbers.

BNP Paribas is also expanding in West Africa, Mignot said, and will soon open an office in Lagos to grow its investment banking business in Nigeria, which this year, according to the UK's Foreign Office is forecast to be the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world.

Local knowledge is regarded as essential and therefore priority will be given to local bankers, who can then have the prospect of rising through the ranks and reach head office. According to Amadou Kane, who has just stepped down after years as head of Africa for BNP Paribas, "we have to see a rise in the number of managers in the group originally from Africa. It is critical to the future."