Bank CEO says "great talent" reassessing best banks to work for
Where should you work now? If the most recent US stress tests are anything to go by, you might want to try somewhere like Citi and avoid somewhere like UBS/Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Barclays and maybe even JPMorgan, just in case things turn nasty.
Alternatively, you could avoid the biggest names in tier one banking altogether. Some of this year's biggest hirers in banking are the lesser names that have scented a chance to pick up the sorts of people who usually save themselves for somewhere else.
That includes Jefferies. When Jefferies reported its quarterly results last week, it revealed that it had hired 21 new managing directors since its financial year began in late November. It also said it planned to continue to hiring. In a letter today, Jefferies' CEO Richard Handler explained why.
Jefferies has been hiring "A+" new partners this year, said Handler. He added that: "Moves like these can only be accomplished during times of duress when great talent realizes there might be a better home for them to serve their clients. "
Like Jamie Dimon, Ken Moelis, Paul Taubman and Deutsche Bank's ever ebullient Fabrizio Campelli, Handler is a big believer in adding talent during "slow times." It can be tough, but "this is a strategy that has served us well over the decades and one of the best ways we have built Jefferies," he declared today. Moelis said in May that he came out of the financial crisis wishing he'd hired even more people.
As the most prestigious banks cut people (or prepare to) Santander has also been ingesting bankers this year. So too has RBC Capital Markets, which just hired Andrea Sartore from Morgan Stanley in Sydney, and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC, which just hired Sami Tabbarah after three decades at Citi in the Middle East.
Would bankers from Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Citi join the likes of Jefferies, Santander, RBC and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank in 'normal' times? Maybe. But it's likely that circumstances gave them a nudge too.
Photo by Juan Rumimpunu on Unsplash
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