Morning Coffee: Where to find 8,500 finance jobs a month. When senior bankers’ sons get summer jobs in banking
Where in the world can you find 8,500 new finance jobs in one month? Try the City of London. Recruitment firm Morgan McKinley thinks there were 8,490 jobs advertised in London in June, up from 7,410 in May, and 10% more than in June 2013. Not only that, but it says pay rose 15% year-on-year.
What kinds of higher-paying finance jobs were these? Morgan McKinley doesn't deal with a lot of 'front office' revenue-generating jobs so it's safe to assume there wasn't a sudden eruption in demand for fixed income traders. It mentions strong demand for qualified accountants with two to five years' experience, for graduate developers to work on 'data and software development projects', and for 'client service and portfolio analysts to handle high levels of trading activity.' Hakan Enver, operations director at Morgan McKinley, says there's been a 'renewed appetite for risk' amid a 'frenzy' of advisory activity, but it's not clear whether this is also prompting frenzied hiring for trading and advisory roles.
How reliable are Morgan McKinley's figures anyway? The Financial Times notes that Morgan McKinley's assessment of the City jobs market is at odds with that of rival recruitment firm Astbury Marsden. Earlier this month, Astbury Marsden declared that there were only 2,190 job vacancies in the City in June, down 13% on May and down 11% on June 2013. With banks under pressure to shrink their balance sheets, the recovery in City jobs is petering out, said Astbury Marsden's managing director. One of these recruitment firms must be mistaken. Which?
Separately, following claims that you can only get a banking job now if your parents are already rich, the Financial Times reports that Vikram Pandit's son Rahul is busy doing an internship at Morgan Stanley. Rahul Pandit is reportedly working in Morgan Stanley's capital markets division. The 'gentlemanliness' of Morgan Stanley's capital markets business was part of the appeal for Pandit's progeny, reports the FT. It may be no coincidence his father worked for Morgan Stanley between 1983 and 2005 and became president of the investment bank. As Lloyd Blankfein's sons' internships at Goldman Sachs showed a few years ago, it helps to have a senior banker in the family.
Meanwhile:
Oppenheimer Europe wants to hire M&A bankers and 'independent advisory professionals' in London. (Financial Times)
George Soros hired a keen young portfolio manager (whom he he met at a Hamptons party) on a $500k salary and a 12.5% profit cut and dumped him for no apparent reason eight months later. (Telegraph)
Barclays has got some new heads of Asian investment banking. (Bloomberg)
People keep leaving Barclays’ Wealth. It’s begun to be seen as an adjunct to Barclays’ retail banking business. (Financial Times)
Junior FX traders in London are being offered immunity by the US Justice Department as it investigates FX fixing. (Financial Times)
Having moved to Newport, the Office of National Statistics is suffering from the dearth of Welsh economists. (Financial Times)
Blythe Master’s ex-husband has launched a Bitcoin hedge fund. (Newsweek)
Pippa Middleton's banker boyfriend is now becoming a Swiss hedge fund manager. (Independent)
The man behind Gotham City research does not wear a cape and tights. (Telegraph)
Strange questions that have been asked in banking interviews. (BusinessInsider)
Questions you must not ask at the end of an interview. (Interview Bull)
Related articles:
McKinsey’s advice for fixed income traders. How to build an algorithm when you can’t code
Earnest young bankers snatch last opportunities for inebriation. Compliance hiring overdrive
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