Four banks that have said they will keep hiring in the front office

Like steel shop fronts after a night of rioting and looting, the hatches are coming down fast. Headhunters talk of hiring freezes now at BAML, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and BarCap. Even Citi is rumoured to have a freeze in some front office areas of its European business, although not across the bank as a whole.

But there is still hiring. Some banks have stated their intentions of building businesses in specific areas. Admittedly, these intentions were declared last week - since when a lot has changed, but ceteris paribus this is where front office recruitment should happen one day soon.

1) BNP Paribas - prime broking

BNP Paribas has spent 18 months readying its prime broking business and is now ready to launch it on the world. According to Financial News, it currently employs 350 people and, 'plans to grow headcount in the US, Asia and Europe over the next year.'

2) Macquarie - mining analysts

Last week, Bloomberg ran a story reflecting upon the popularity of mining analysts, who are being picked up by everyone from Paulson & Co, to BlackRock, UBS, and Macquarie.

This included a comment by Julian Wentzel, head of European research at Macquarie, who said: "Over the coming months, we intend to build the team out further given the importance of this sector to Macquarie's various businesses."

3) Evercore - senior investment bankers

Back in February, Evercore said it wanted to expand in Europe and in particular to hire some senior M&A staff. A few weeks ago, it said it's hired six senior managing directors and that it intends to, "make the same investment and gather similar fruit next year as there is a long-term leakage of talent from the bulge bracket to firms like ours."

Although Evercore is only declaring its intention of hiring senior rainmakers, top end recruitment is likely to be matched by hiring more junior staff to balance out the hieararchy.

4) Jefferies - unspecified

Jefferies is the black sheep/'kid that's doing its own thing' in this list of avowed hirers. It hasn't committed to additional recruitment and in June said it was pulling back from hiring.

Since the start of June, however, Jefferies has announced the recruitment of more than 20 senior people. Last week it was said to poach a senior German industrials banker from UBS.

We expect more hiring here, even if Jefferies isn't saying so.