6 Figure Career Management

In just a few hours, I’ll be running our F.R.E.E teleseminar on “How To Find A Job During Recession.”   You can still register by clicking this link now:  

It’s a timely call given the level of job cut announcements this week across the banking sector.  Credit Suisse, Commerzbank Dresdner Kleinwort, Bank of America/Merill Lynch, Nomura and State Street all announced lay offs in the last few days. Coupled with that, we’ve seen the awful unemployment figures announced in the US yesterday.
 
So whether you’ve been laid off and looking for work or just uneasy about your job security during a recession, be sure to sign up to today’s call. I know it’s a Saturday so don’t worry if you’re out Christmas shopping and too busy to call in - just register and we’ll send you an audio recording of the call in MP3 format so you can listen to it in your own time.  
 
Click here now to register http://www.6figurecareermanagement.com/find-a-job-during-a-recession/
 
‘See you’ in a few hours
 
Sital
 
Sital Ruparelia
6 Figure Career Management
www.6FigureCareerManagement.com

P.S. If you know anyone else who would benefit from the call, then please forward this email on
 
P.P.S. Once again, if you can’t make the call at 3.30pm today (UK), 10.30am (New York), just register and we’ll send you the audio recording so that you can listen as and when you like
 
 

By Andreas Hippin

The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said.

“You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything,” said Ali.

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS’s are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody’s and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS’s.

Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said: “We need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster.”

Shandu added, “We don’t call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better.”

“More asset managers are hiring than are firing staff, according to new research, despite the downturn in markets and investor confidence that has led many in the fund management industry to start cutting costs.”

I think the headline and the first paragraph of this article are a somewhat misleading. The survey in question says more asset managament firms which took part in the survey were hiring (25%) than those that were letting staff go (20%). But there is no data for the absolute numbers hired and fired in the last 3-6 months – data which would I’m sure paint a very different headline.

I sense that a large proportion of the firms in the 25% that are hiring a niche boutique houses as opposed to larger fund managers. From what I’m seeing in the market place (certainly in London), the larger asset management firms are now laying people off to cut costs which means that on absolute numbers there is  probably more firing going on across the asset management sector than hiring.

Nonetheless, the survey does confirm the relative stability within the institutional asset management area inspite of the poor performance of most funds at the moment - something you would expect given the longer term view tyoically held by the trustee boards of pension funds. The number of firms in the survey confirming that they are hiring is also an strong indicator for those leaving jobs from investment banks that asset management (and to a greater extent, Private Banking/Wealth Management) are better hunting grounds in the current market. 

To read the article, click here

Over the summer, I wrote about the job loss league compiled by the Here In The City site. They have recently updated the table  - below are the 10 banking groups who have laid off the most staff as measured by % to total work force:

Bear Stearns - 7,500 job losses, 14,000 financial markets jobs, 53.5% of the total

Lehman Brothers - 14,500, 30,000, 48.3%

Wachovia - 1,400, 3,900, 35.8% (Wachovia’s new owners, Wells Fargo, is thought unlikely to want to have to deal with an investment banking business in the current environment. The smart money thinks that the unit will either be sold of pared back)

CitiBank - 7,900, 30,000, 26.3%

UBS - 5,800, 22,300, 26%

Royal Bank of Scotland / ABN AMRO - 7,000, 28,000, 25% (The recent ‘part nationalization’ of RBS is thought likely to result in significant additional headcount reductions at the Global Markets & Banking Division).

WestLB - 1,530, 6,120, 25%

Fortis / ABN AMRO Asset Management - 490, 2000, 24.5%

Perry Capital - 20, 100, 20%

Ramius LLC - 40, 200, 20%

To see the full league table, click here

As a job searcher within financial services, this week’s banking crises is the last thing you could do with. The papers are full of strories about banks collapsing, banks merging and talks of wholesale job cuts across the sector.

But despite all the uncertainty and craziness, you can still find a job - after all you are only looking for ONE position right? One position is out there - you just need to adjust your approach to meet the changing shape of the industry and ramp up the level of effort you put into the search.

Here are 5 tips job for finding work in the current market:

1. Be ready for more competition
In addition to competing with employees from Lehman Brothers, both Merrill Lynch and Dresdner are likely to lose people later this year having been absorbed into Bank of America and Commerzbank respectively. With rumours of further job cuts on the way, you must differentiate yourself from the competition whilst also ramping up the level of activity and effort to market yourself.

Click here to read the rest…