Monday, May 25, 2009

Credit Suisse places ads to hire Asia private bankers

While some of the investment banks are shedding off staff, I do hear some encouraging news lately. This might make even more sense to my Asia Pacific readers.

Credit Suisse places ads to hire Asia private bankers
23 April 2009 Reuters News

Credit Suisse has placed advertisements in newspapers to hire experienced private bankers in Asia, at a time rivals have been shedding staff.

The Swiss bank placed an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal Asia on Thursday asking bankers to make appointments with senior Credit Suisse officials in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.

Similar ads went out in the Financial Times and Singapore's Business Times, a Credit Suisse spokeswoman said.

"Amid unprecedented market turmoil, our private banking business recorded strong asset inflows," the bank's head of private banking for Asia-Pacific, Marcel Kreis, said in the Wall Street Journal ad.

"Private banking is one of the core businesses of Credit Suisse, with a notable high performance in Asia."

The No. 2 Swiss lender's advertisements come as jobs are cut at the private banking arms of rivals such as UBS and HSBC, and ahead of Credit Suisse's first-quarter earnings later in the day.

UBS last week laid off about 240 private bankers in Asia, while HSBC said on Tuesday it was cutting 100 private banking jobs in Hong Kong [ID:nLL396647].

Citigroup , Societe Generale and Barclays also recently shed staff from their wealth management arms in Asia.

Credit Suisse's private banking arm last year generated 50.9 billion Swiss francs in net new assets including 8.4 billion Swiss francs from clients in the Asia-Pacific.

A Credit Suisse spokeswoman in Singapore declined to say how many bankers the company was planning to hire.

5 comments:

bryan said...

heya =) just a quick note that i'm following your blog! great content, keep it going :)

Briana said...

I am an MBA graduating in December 2009, and wanted to start a career in Private Banking and wealth Management. I did not take any courses that are meant for corpoate or investment banking such as M&A, valuations etc, but took lots of courses in asset management like investments, personal finance etc.

What are the qualities that Private Banks look for in new bankers?

Thankyou

Anna Maria D'Souza said...

Briana

I'm glad that you raise this question. You don't need to be trained as a private banker at school, as you'll be trained on the job, usually by a senior private banker who is also your colleague and mentor. For new hires, the bank would expect a good mix of academic excellence and outgoing personality along with good networking skills. As you have to advise very wealthy people on what to do with their money, being presentable and able to articulate well with confidence are important. Your first important step is to go look for a top US/Europe IB and stay with their wealth management trainee programme.

patrickho said...

Hi Anna,

I'm an undergraduate who is really interested in breaking into investment banking.

I'm not too sure if I'm qualified for it. my results aren't top notch(2nd upper so far, i'm going into my penultimate year). nonetheless, I do have quite a bit of work experience for my age (private equity analyst, written sell-side research reports etc), and I'm heavily involved in school activities (running a fund for the school and organising other activities)

What do you think are the chances of me being called up for an interview and getting that 1st step? Put simply, do investment banks place a lot of emphasis on grades?

Anna Maria D'Souza said...

Hi Patrick

For entry roles, good grade is certainly attractive to hiring managers. But grades do not mean everything, your experience and activities will also count. However if you see your CV as relatively weak, you would need to write a very good cover letter to increase your chances for an interview. Browse my blog for tips and try to craft a very strong cover letter.