America’s loss is Asia’s gain
Submitted by 2point6billion.com Blog
There is a brilliant white light at the end of the tunnel of U.S. financial woes - lucrative jobs in emerging Asia. As investment banks fold in the U.S. and hundreds loose their livelihoods, banks in India and China are lapping up wall street bankers by the dozens. Asian economies which are growing at an average of seven percent annually, can easily absorb these globally experienced whiz kids.
New York’s governor reckons 40,000 Wall Street jobs could go in a worst-case scenario, with talk swirling of more bank deals and mergers.
A kind of forced brain drain, the quickest talent gain for Asia came within hours of Bank of America agreeing to buy Merrill Lynch last week. Indian financial services firm Ambit hired five Merrill executives, a sign that Asia hopes to gain from massive Wall Street layoffs, Reuters reported.
BNP Paribas and Nomura Securities in India are looking to hire Lehman executives, according to investment banking sources who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. In Hong Kong, bankers said they were considering hiring from Lehman.
“I think there’s opportunities to improve our team or bring key people into key positions relatively easily and quickly and painlessly. Normally, it’s quite expensive and difficult to move investment bankers around,” said one banker in Hong Kong.
Executives at Lehman’s real estate and capital market divisions in China said there was still huge demand for talent in specific areas such as deal making and investment banking.
While hiring talent from overseas the problem goes a little deeper - bankers and headhunters are split over whether senior level or more junior executives will be hired more easily.
“Junior and mid-level guys are more flexible and are cheaper to hire,” said one investment banker, who recently moved to a local firm in Mumbai from a multinational.
“More senior guys, unless they were really superb, may actually have a harder time,” he said.
