More investment banks are quietly hiring equity researchers

While investment banks across the City are reassessing their headcount or freezing recruitment as the fallout from the Brexit vote and difficult operating environment, equity research remains a key area of focus and senior analysts continue to move around.

One example is Farooq Hanif, who has just joined Credit Suisse as head of insurance research in Europe. He came from Citi, where he'd held the same role. For Credit Suisse, this is another example of a senior analyst focused on the financial sector to be snapped up in recent weeks - in July Jon Peace, the well-regarded head of European banks research at Nomura, joined in the same role in July.

Meanwhile, Jefferies has just taken on Tamsin Garrety and Sonalee Parekh. Garrety is a former UBS media equity researcher who was latterly a partner and head of investor relations at communications firm Charlotte Street Partners. Parekh is a telecoms analyst who formerly worked for RBC Capital Markets.

Jefferies has been building its equities business in London over the past few months. Most recently, in research, it took on Alix Turner, who was an analyst focused on retail and luxury goods specialist sales at Nomura, and Benjie Creelan-Sandford, who was a banks researcher at the Japanese bank.

Research hiring is hardly on fire, but investment banks are once again conscious of the need to hire in senior analysts as the deadline for MiFID II - which requires banks to 'unbundle' research from other trading costs and, potentially, charge for it directly - approaches. So far, this has encouraged large investment banks to turn to top analysts, supported by a junior team. Smaller players are building up their equity research teams across the board in anticipation of increased demand for in-depth research from clients. MiFID's deadline has been extended from 2017 to January 2018.

This hasn't stopped senior analysts from looking for new vocations, however. The popular move across to the buy-side continues - Andrew Byrne, who was a director in metals and mining research at Barclays investment bank in London, has recently moved to Wellington Asset Management in Boston. Meanwhile, Richard Burden, who was a managing director in insurance research at Credit Suisse in London, recently took the role of head of investor relations at Zurich Insurance in Switzerland.