A Tough Future for Investment Banking

The Boston Consulting Group has done a thorough report into the Capital Markets and Investment Banking sector. It makes grim reading, pointing out the uninspiring medium term in the markets, increased regulation and the use of more technology, especially in low yielding desks such as cash equities, to reduce headcount. Of course, shareholders will want a return too and this is going to put more of an emphasis on cost reduction and hence flatter structures.

Here is the HITC short review, for the full 23 pages here is the BCG article. Registration is free.

It really is the time to look at your career over the longer term and define a strategy. Let me know if you want to talk this through and plan how to improve you position in the increasingly competitive market place.

MSc In Finance?

Here is a what looks like an interesting series of articles on London universities MSc in Finance from Wall Street Oasis. This article is a review of London School of Economics which comes to the general conclusion that it is the very fine school that we know it is. Future articles:

London Business School
London Metropolitan University
Birkbeck

If you are looking to do a Masters then do look at Imperial and Cass and quite possibly before the last two especially if you are looking for a front office job. A word of warning, these are expensive courses so before you commit yourself make sure that you are going to get the return that you want by having a conversation with me. There are usually a number of different paths to take, each with its own positives and negatives.

All Change

The move of Alex Wilmot-Sitwell (City AM Profile) from UBS to Bank of America Merrill Lynch looks like there are now doing some work to strengthen their European franchise. This may well mean more investment, particularly after so many defections, so do have a chat with your network to see how this has been received. It may be a good place if you are looking for a new position. Here is the City AM article.

On the job front, the better than expected results from a number of banks may well mean that the hiring freezes will be quietly removed, get back in touch with those companies where this has been the case. On a more positive note Here is the City report that Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are hiring 50 currency traders (original Bloomberg article)

Marathon Pics

Yesterday was the annual London Marathon and here are a few pictures of what it looks like with some 37,000 people running around Canary Wharf.

I took this from the Four Seasons Hotel towards Westferry DLR, about the 15 mile mark.

This is Upper Bank Street with Northern Trust in the background, just over 18 miles.

And here they are running down South Colonnade with State Street behind them.

Well done to all the runners and probably larger number of sponsors. My next-door neighbor, Physiotherapy London, has reported lots of massages today!

Jobs – Mixed…

March has seen mixed news. On the good side, the economy generally is growing especially in London and the IT sector as this City AM article suggests. Hedge funds seem to have had a marginally positive first quarter according to the Hennessee Group of hedge fund advisors in New York.

On the not so good side Astbury Marsden suggest that newly advertised jobs have dropped in March by 11% to a level that is almost have of what it was last year. What with 2.3 qualified candidates for every advertised position, those with jobs are hanging on to them so the post bonus merry-go-round is somewhat subdued this year.

To cheer you up, or otherwise, here is a link to the 2012 Morgan McKinley salary survey. Let me know if you want the full pdf which has more front office details.

Tough times so if you are going for a job best get some video interview practice in with me before hand. If you know someone that has been made redundant then do get them to give me a call or at least see some of the free tips here.

Bullish Finance?

Certainly the CityAM take on Deloitte’s poll of Chief Financial Officers suggest so with only 30% expecting a recession which is down from 54% from the last quarter of last year. This is supported by the 10 month high for manufacturing growth.

Now these are not just from finance but from all sectors. Obviously this will have some refection in the banks and the investment managers of the City but we know that both the buy and the sell sides have their problems that need to be dealt with. That having been said, the CBI quarterly they also report on is bullish. Headline figures include:

Profitability +21%
Business Volumes +23%
IT Spending +47%
Optimism +32%
Employment +19%

Now this is 19% of companies reporting increased employment, not necessarily a huge need for additional people. Good news all the same. Here is the CityAM article and here is a link to the complete CBI/PwC survey.

With all this uncertainly both at the economic (macro) level and the individual company level as they consolidate their strategic positions make sure that you are prepared by having some coaching me to firm up your career path.

Wow Factor Firms?

Here is the City, always keen on recruiters, has done a straw poll to find out which companies they like to see on a CV especially as the last employer. The article has 21 firms, some with ‘interesting’ comments. Are you ‘Whizzy’ or ‘Ethical’? Perhaps neither. Here are the top ten and a link to the rest:

1. Goldman Sachs
2. JPMorgan
3. Morgan Stanley
4. Jefferies
5. Deutsche Bank
6. UBS
7. PIMCO
8. BlackRock
9. Moelis & Co
10. Evercore Partners

Whilst here, what is your experience of their jobs careers section?

Act, don’t plan

This is the message in March’s HBR in unpredictable environments and is the conclusion that they take from research from the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School of 27 entrepreneurs. The articel is called ‘New Project? Don’t Analyze – Act’ and applies to managing projects in corporates in unstable environments.

In brief the entrepreneur takes a smart step towards a goal, gets feedback and then repeats with another step. Put simply (and it does not get much more simple):

Act
Learn
Build

Interestingly, entrepreneurs do not plan unless they have to, rather than predict the future they try to create it. This way they keep the risk low and much more manageable as they are dealing with reality rather than forecasts. Of course, this is generally an anathema to the big corporate machines with budgets, control lines and other paraphernalia of big companies.

So, as an entrepreneurial employee who sees a good opportunity, what should you do? These are the six steps that they suggest:

1 Use what you have available
2 Identify how much you can afford to lose (time and money)
3 Get the commitment that you need for the next step, rather than the whole project.
4 Work only with volunteers, ‘make it happen’ types
5 Go for the low hanging fruit and link to a business imperative
6 Manage expectations – under promise and over deliver

This will build momentum and makes sure that you keep yourself in a retrievable situation. Generally this is so much of what happens in the City especially in the trading areas where a good idea can be quickly put into practice. This might not be quite so true as it was ten years ago with compliance and regulation becoming more predominant but it is where London has always been good. Do go and get the article from HBR.

When looking for a job this strategy is hugely important so once you have identified what you want to do, just get out there and do it! Coaching can be really supportive here both to gain clarity, develop strategy and manage the ups and downs of the journey.

M&A BOBOG or Sterling Supporter?

On the one hand, FT Alphaville has research from Credit Suisse suggesting that in the year to date inward bound M&A is keeping Sterling up despite poor economic performance. Boom times perhaps? Then there is a contrasting article from Reuters telling on rates being cut to uneconomic levels and that there are too many firms competing for places at the global top table. Will there be more blood in this sector?

What with the recognised over capacity, revenues have apparently risen 4 times over the last 15 years against capability which has gone up 12 times over the same period, supply and demand needs to get into alignment. More risk and less reward suggests that there will be a number of players reducing or getting out of completely their exposure in this area. This will have quite a lot of career ramifications and much will depend on your ‘age and stage’, give me a call if you want to discuss your situation specifically in an informed and objective way.

The Search for Meaning

Search for meaning is key for managing people longer term. Viktor Frankl put it like this:

“If we take man as he really is we make him worse.
If we over-estimate we promote him to what he can really be!”

This 4 minute video clip is very good and came to me via American coach Cheryl Richardson and Richard Branson.

Viktor Frankl was a distinguished psychotherapist and wrote the very good “Man’s Search For Meaning” in part based on his time in Nazi concentration camps. I read it over fifteen years ago and used to give it to my clients it is so good.

What with all that is going on in financial services, the competitiveness and shrinking prospective remuneration I am working with a number of people helping them to get clarity about what they want as well as how they can get it. Give me a call if this video gets you thinking.

Redundancy Tips

With “Here is the City” reporting job losses at JP Morgan amongst other places I have posted my Redundancy Tip sheet in the ‘Tip Sheets’ tab. In brief they are:

1. Acknowledge your feelings
2. Talk to your family
3. Count your blessings
4. Look after yourself
5. Make a list of Supporters
6. Setup a routine
7. Review your finances
8. Make a list of the highs and lows
9. List your strengths
10. Get Clarity

This will get anyone made redundant off to a good start but there is a lot more to do especially in this market to get a job. Feel free to send this to anyone you know in this situation and get them to give me a call. It will probably be useful and if they don’t want to take up my services they can always add a recommendation on my Linked In profile or send a ‘tweet’.

Trading on the Buy Side

An interesting article from Advanced Trading, The New Trader: Adapt or Die about what a trader does on the buy side in these of algorithms and high-speed networks. A must for anyone interested in starting in this area and if you are wanting to get on then look at some of the Masters degrees that are getting good reviews in Wall Street, The Top 10 Quant Schools, very US biased but it does give an idea of more useful courses than the typical MBA perhaps.

Now if you want to look where to start in Europe a good place is www.wilmott.com. There are, of course, many other places so do give me a call and we can discuss how I can help you significantly move your career forward.

Investment Mistakes – or Learning Opportunities?

Barry Ritholtz of the Big Picture Blog and Fusion IQ the online quantitative research firm, has written a review of his investments activities for each of the last three years. They make fascinating reading and come under the title of “Investing Mea Culpas”. He looks at the process rather than the performance to see what he can do to improve over the following year. It is surprising how many of the items are around his personal or softer skills. He reinforces my view that investing is an art rather than a science and as such it is as much about him improving his discipline and his perspective as it is around analysing stocks or improving his knowledge.

In a sector where confidence, often arrogance, is seen as a positive it is good to see someone who is publicly reviewing their process and owning up to things that they want to improve. I am constantly working with both buy and sell side professionals to improve their use of time, whether that is being more efficient or, more usually, by helping them identify how to increase their efficacy. Communication is another popular area, doing a good job is not enough especially in these difficult days. I am always surprised at how many people forget that they are in the business of making money, it is the common denominator of the City, yet so many forget the business aspect of this and focus on the markets and their pressures which can dominate the daily work load. Give me a call if you want coaching to make your work life easier – 020 7987 7080.

Getting back to Barry’s Mea Culpas, I have listed them below so that you can see which ones you might want to improve on in 2012. There are links to the individual articles in the Year.

2011
1. Running Assets vs. Managing a Business
2. Confirmation Bias
3. Articulate policy and principles
4. Skepticism
5. Communication
6. Time Management
7. Clients
8. Undercapitalized

2010
1. Too Many Equity Mutual Funds
2. Putting Cash to work
3. Focus!
4. Health

2009
• Not Aggressive Enough
• Improving the Sell Discipline
• Too Much Cash
• Undue Influence
• Focus!

Jobs – Good News!

At last, another ‘Good News’ story. This time it is from the Morgan McKinley London Employment Monitor which is showing an 8% increase in City jobs month on month. Not only that but they are getting them that much quicker too and with better salaries. That is the good news so don’t get carried away; I will let you go and read the rest should you so want.

Here is the City AM report, marginally easier reading but no pretty graphs. They do make the perennial point that quality people with good skills and experience are always in demand. Also, do go and have a look at their new job website which has some 1,000 vacancies.

Ex’s, Questions & Coaching

Last week, I had dinner with an ex-girlfriend, a bitter-sweet and generally delightful occasion, after which she gave me a little book. Not only is she very charming but she is also particularly intelligent so it was with trepidation that I read the title, “The Question Book”.

A wave of relief swept over me since, as a coach, it is what I spend a lot of my time doing – asking questions. As any five-year old will tell you it is easy to ask questions, especially when they start with ‘why’. So why do people come and talk to me, or any coach for that matter? They come because they have a problem and they want help with that. Many of my clients have great expertise, are very intelligent and have wonderfully supportive colleagues and friends. Unsurprisingly, some of these friends also have very good answers, yet they still have their problem. So what do they get from coming to me? Do I really just ask a better question? I think that it is more than this; it is a combination of things such as being objective and listening for different things. I am sure that it also helps, if only in saving time, that I have a personal understanding of the “City” financial market place, building businesses and rather more than ten years coaching financial professionals. Having first entered the City in 1978, I have seen a great deal of change from the old jobber’s pitches on the floor of the Stock Exchange, through open outcry in Liffe to the modern electronic trading systems. I have also seen what has stayed constant especially the greed and the fear as markets go through their boom to bust cycles and back again. All in all, this experience with my very significant coach training not only helps me to generate options and new ideas but also to get some perspective too. Then there is knowing the time to challenge and the time to shut up! Many clients have told me how helpful I have been in getting them to re-analyse their situations and find better ways forward.

What with the current financial turmoil, the stress as investment banks in particular cut jobs and the pressure from the boss it is hardly surprising that we don’t think about ourselves and rarely give thought to either our longer term career or, perhaps, even time to think about what we need to be doing differently to be more effective now. This is where my coaching is really useful; helping you think through the issues in new ways; turning the ‘boss from hell’ into your ‘new best friend’ or defining a medium term strategy for you and then putting it all into an action plan. Many people have come to me to change jobs but have ended up being promoted and getting back on track with their old firm which has saved them all sorts of risk. Make sure that being busy and intelligent is for your benefit, not just the company’s. If any of this resonates, give me a call on 020 7987 7080.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, the ex and the book. It wasn’t the title that made me shudder; it was the subtitle, “What Makes You Tick”. What was she alluding to…?