Around the World: Pay and Bonus Cuts on the Way for South African Investment Bankers

Pay and bonus cuts are unfortunately on the cards for investment bankers in South Africa

Good example or dangerous trend? The chief executive, managing director and finance director of Investec have each announced that they will forfeit their bonuses and take a pay cut of nearly 90 percent in 2012. This decision follows disappointing results, with a 17.4 percent drop in operating profit. The South African bank is admirably sticking to its stated principles: rewards must be linked to performance. [South Africa]

Recruitment remains healthy in this particular sector…

The Asian health insurance market looks upbeat, thanks to low penetration rates and the region’s economic growth. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Manulife wants to double its Asia insurance agents to 100,000 over the next five years. Health care benefits firm Aetna also recently obtained its license to sell health insurance policies in Singapore. [Singapore]

It is possible that the financial services jobs market will not recover for an entire decade. This is what you must do about it

There is some not good news this morning. Recruitment firm Morgan McKinley, known for its monthly look-backs at financial services hiring in London, says the number of jobs on offer fell 50 percent between mid-May and mid-June 2012 compared to the same period in 2011. This was also down 33 percent in the month previously. [UK]

The dropping of Chinese double taxation for some Hong Kong residents could also benefit employers

We explore the implications of a new regulation from the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) addressing the double-taxation burden encountered by Hong Kong and Macau tax residents who exercise employment duties in mainland China. The new policy, Announcement 16, came into effect on June 1st and is applicable to employment income earned from this date. [Hong Kong]

We have signs that Brevan Howard is hiring people from banks, plus a warning about hedge fund interviews generally

Last time we looked at Brevan Howard (in May), it was in a cautionary context, and we said that Brevan Howard didn’t really seem to be hiring anyone in London. This was despite its earlier suggestion that it might quite like to hire some former traders from investment banks. [Scotland]