eFinancialCareers

On the face of it, international investment banks are ramping up their teams in the Middle East. However, it could be that many are only transferring existing staff across to the region and opportunities for external hires are actually few and far between. The Financial Times reports that investment bankers in the likes of Citi, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, and Lehman Brothers are “queuing up” to move to the GCC. They... Read more

With the likes of UBS, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse all heavily increasing their presence in the GCC recently, it’s easy to miss the raft of job opportunities at a number of Europe’s smaller financial institutions. This week Intesa SanPaolo, Italy’s second largest bank behind UniCredit, opened in the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) to focus on corporate and trade finance, structured finance, project finance, investment banking, treasury services and... Read more

Equity capital markets (ECM) has been teetering on the edge of exploding into action in the Middle East, but now it’s in full flow. ECM professionals are, therefore, increasingly becoming hot property. At least 120 initial public offerings (IPOs) are planned in the GCC through to 2010 as more and more firms turn to equity markets to raise funds for expansion, according to investment bank Gulf Capital. IPO volumes in... Read more

Forget the 2,600 investment banking redundancies in its western operations and the $37bn in subprime-related writedowns, UBS is in expansion mode in the Middle East. Having gained a licence to operate in Saudi Arabia, the bank will be moving fixed income banker Mohamed Sammakia over to head the office and is also applying for a licence to set up in Qatar. UBS currently employs around 100 bankers in the GCC and... Read more

The demand for equity research analysts in the UAE might be on the up, but a new law could place restrictions on what they can report and undermine their objectivity. In the West, equity researchers have to be careful not to release misleadingly positive data on companies, but new rules proposed by the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (Esca) discourage negative opinions about UAE firms. Esca says the law is... Read more

Pay in the Middle East is spiralling. It now makes up almost 60% of banks’ operating costs. A survey by consultancy Hewitt Associates suggests salaries in Oman and Qatar lead the way when it comes to eating into banks’ profits. But pay across the Middle East banking sector is becoming a problem – particularly when you consider that the average US bank aims to keep compensation costs below 50% of... Read more

Jobs are plentiful, talent is scarce, competition is fierce and fickle financial services professionals in the Middle East are now changing jobs every seven months. The skills shortage in financial services in the Middle East is well known and it seems bankers are using this to their advantage – bolting after bonuses and shifting jobs for extra cash or a better position. Speaking at a recent conference, and citing headhunter... Read more