If you want to work for a Chinese investment bank in London, you are in luck. Financial News reports that China Merchant Securities (CMS), China’s third largest securities firm, has opened an office in the City. It wants to become a ‘comprehensive investment bank’ and to this end it will be hiring 40 people.
40 hires might not sound too comprehensive, but there could be more to come. – The 40 hires are merely CMS’s opening gambit and will be followed by more in phase two of its expansion. Who will populate CMS’s new desks? Commodities middle offices professionals might want to send their CVs – the company will start by providing ‘risk management services for trading commodities.’ Long term, CMS wants to, ‘focus on offshore renminbi and cross-border initiatives between Europe, the Middle East and Africa.’ – It will want to hear from FX traders, then. And relationship bankers with Middle East, African and European clients.
Separately, Chris Arnade, the ex-Citigroup prop trader-turned photographer, has written in the Guardian about the way banking jobs are being perpetuated in banking families. When he entered banking in 1993, Arnade said most people in the industry didn’t have degrees from fancy universities – he was working with a failed baseball player and a frustrated jazz musician. One of the bank’s most profitable businesses was run by a former elevator repairman.
That’s all changed. The only people banks hire now are the ‘play it safe’ kids, says Arnade. – The ones who’ve been to top schools, whose parents have helped stuff their CVs with worthy activities and who haven’t sullied their resumes with blue collar holiday jobs. That kind of elite upbringing costs money. And the people best placed to provide are parents who work in banking themselves. In this way, Arnade suggests that banking careers are becoming a closed circle – only the already rich can get in.
Meanwhile:
35 year old ex-Goldman trader told his mother he’d get a bonus worth at least $13m for 2010 and was disappointed when it was just $8.25m. (Bloomberg)
Brevan Howard lost 4.3% in its main fund during May. Low volatility was to blame. (Bloomberg)
Activist investor thinks UBS will separate its wealth management unit from its investment bank. (Reuters)
ABN AMRO is raising managers’ salaries 20% to compensate for a proposed Dutch bonus cap. (Bloomberg)
Hedge fund managers Chris Hohn and Jamie Cooper-Hohn are on track for Britain’s first billion pound divorce. He is the son of a Jamaican car mechanic. (Telegraph)
Imperial College students sitting engineering exam find answers stapled to the back. (Evening Standard)
It’s now nearly as expensive to rent in Hackney as it is to rent in Richmond. (CityAm)
Actually, millennials just want to get paid. (BusinessInsider)
KPMG gives interns $200 to spend on office clothes and then runs its own offices clothes fashion show. (WSJ)
“It’s not just an app that says Yo. It’s a whole new means of communication.” (Financial Times)
Related articles:
Top tier banker in 3rd tier firm prevails, again. Naughty Deutsche trader hired by hedge fund
The amorality of the senior rainmaker on a pitch. Macquarie man’s disastrous mistake
Outrage of the uber-competitive ex-Goldman trader. Banks’ warped idea of ‘smart’