Lots of London jobs at the bank with a predilection for making millionaires
There are not a huge amount of front office jobs on offer yet this year. Headhunters are complaining of slow times; most banks are hanging back as the first quarter hasn't been totally great.
But somewhere is hiring. And it is not Jefferies. It looks like Macquarie has got a lot of holes to fill.
New boss, new building
Macquarie in London has got a bit of momentum.
After a year without an EMEA head, Macquarie has finally found one in the form of David Fass, formerly of Deutsche, who will be joining in June. Following a period of evaluation, headhunters expect Fass's arrival to prompt recruitment.
Macquarie has also got a nice new 217,000 square foot European headquarters building at Ropemaker Place. It currently employs 1,200 people in Europe, meaning each one enjoys an average 180 square foot of space, suggesting there's room for expansion.
Replacing the Fox-Pitt people
Macquarie certainly needs to hire. It acquired financial services-specialist investment bank Fox-Pitt, Kelton in December 2009, but made a bad job of retaining Fox-Pitt's staff.
At the moment, Macquarie has particular vacancies in equity research, where it's looking for a banks analyst, a food analyst and a capital goods analyst. Headhunters say it also wants an oils analyst and that Macquarie has ambitious plans under Julian Wentzel, its new head of EMEA research who recently moved across from South Africa.
The bank is also expanding in equity derivatives sales and in agricultural commodities. It's expected to resume hiring 'opportunistically' in investment banking once Fass arrives.
Big plans, small money?
Whether Macquarie has the financial determination to fulfil its European ambitions is open to question, however.
Although it's achieved the moniker the 'millionaires factor,' this refers to its infrastructure business in Australia, several years ago.
The most recent accounts for Macquarie Bank International, filed for the year ending March 2010, show the bank made a loss of 5.6m on its UK operations - down from an 8.3m profit the previous year.
Last August, UBS analysts pointed out that pay per head at Macquarie's investment bank was less than half pay per head at Goldman Sachs. Last month, Nomura analysts reiterated this, and said Macquarie risks losing people unless it pays them more.
"They've had some problems but are trying to move on," says one headhunter. "It's not a great business and they don't want to spend any money on it," alleges another.
Macquarie declined to comment.
