Lunchtime Links: As banks rethink their global aspirations, even Brazilian jobs are unsafe
Banks are seriously curtailing their activities in the Middle East. As we've mentioned on our Gulf site, both Citigroup and Deutsche have both pulled senior ECM staff out of the country on the back of disappointing deal flow. Meanwhile, local bank Shuaa Capital has had second thoughts about being an investment bank and is trying to turn itself into an advisory house/private wealth manager of the kind UBS's fantasizes about.
But Brazil? Brazil is supposed to be the market of boundless growth, where everyone is expanding and Portuguese-speaking bankers are like gold dust.
Or maybe not. Bloomberg reports today that RBS is cutting 30 jobs in Brazil as it decides not to start an investment bank there after all.
"After careful consideration, we have concluded that it is not prudent to commit the necessary investment that would be required to successfully build an onshore presence in Brazil," the bank reportedly said in the statement. "We will continue to work closely with our clients in an offshore capacity."
Unfortunately, it is all part of the same trend. Afflicted by falling revenues, inelastic costs and rising capital requirements, European banks are being forced to forget their international onshore adventurism. The future is in a suitcase.
2012 could be an amazing year for European M&A. (Bloomberg)
In total, JPMorgan analysts recommend cutting 1,700 jobs in FICC at UBS, equivalent to 33% of the division's headcount, with around 40% from the front office and 60% from support staff and the corporate centre. (Financial News)
Katherine Garrett-Cox, the chief executive of Alliance Trust, the Scottish investment firm, has decorated her office purple, prompting men to wear purple ties to impress her. (Dealbook)
Nassim Taleb: The bank business model is a compensation scheme and nothing else. (BusinessInsider)
"French banks failed to learn lessons from the 2007, 2008 crisis and became complacent." (WSJ)
The two biggest risks in Europe. (Pragmatic Capitalist)
"All the big beasts of equity investment - Anthony Bolton, Paulson and Crispin [Odey] have had the same problem: Equities have tanked." (The Times)
On instability and egalitarianism. (Rick Bookstaber)
Man of considerable intellectual ability places his faeces on a heater in an attempt to turn it into gold. (Belfast Telegraph)
