Has Jefferies hired rather too many people in the front office?

Financial News has been familiarising itself with the recently released results of Jefferies International, the business which houses Jefferies' European and Japanese operations.

We've had a look too. The results are curious.

They confirm that Jefferies hired a heap of people in the 11 months to November 2011. Strangely, they also show that its headcount is substantially skewed towards the front office.

In 2009, Jefferies International's ratio of front office to 'administration' staff was 2:1.

By 2010, this had fallen to 1.3:1, but front office staff were still in the majority.

All front and no support

Jefferies' preponderance of front office bankers is weird because most other banks have a reverse structure, with lots more back office staff.

Hence, as we've pointed out on past occasions, SocGen CIB has around 2.5 back office people to every front office person, whilst BarCap has 2.1 to 1.

Why is Jefferies so abnormal?

Maybe it's just a question of definition - Jefferies could be categorising all its risk professionals as front office. Or maybe it's hired particularly heavily in capital markets and corporate finance, which require fewer support staff than sales and trading.

Either way, more middle and back office hiring at Jefferies seems likely very soon.