Bankers Continue To Receive Raises Despite Recession

FT.com----

Wall Street names that have been among the most buffeted in recent months – Merrill Lynch, UBS and Citigroup – are hiking pay for their top investment bankers in an attempt to stop an exodus of talent.

Rivals report that poaching the best people from troubled banks has become far trickier. “Since the middle of May it has got far more difficult to get the people we want,” said one senior banker.

Between late 2008 and May, expansionist banks such as Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank had plundered hundreds of senior bankers from those groups that were laid low by the financial crisis, in particular Merrill and UBS.

“I would say UBS and Merrill have each lost 25 per cent of their best people,” said Patrick Field, chairman of London-based financial headhunter Hanover Search.

In spite of the troubled environment, market rates for bankers have been running close to the boom-time highs of two years ago. “In some cases we’ve been paying up to 80 per cent of 2007,” admitted one senior executive at an expanding bank.

But the environment changed four or five weeks ago, bankers say. Partly driven by a need to hold on to good staff – and partly to offset the threat of bonus taxes or caps in the US – UBS, Merrill and Morgan Stanley have all increased their basic pay substantially. Citi now plans to do the same.

According to insiders and rivals, market salary rates for managing directors have jumped from about $250,000 (€180,000) only a few months ago, to closer to $400,000.

As well as base salary hikes, banks are once more offering guaranteed bonuses to staff approached with lucrative offers by rivals. Bank of America, for example, has seen off attempts to poach top Merrill bankers by matching or bettering offers.

Regulators will be concerned – increasing basic pay and guaranteeing bonuses run directly counter to their efforts to push banks towards pay that better reflects long-term performance.

There have also been small signs of the trampled banks scoring coups of their own. Last week UBS hired a new strategy chief, Vesna Nevistic, from Goldman Sachs while last month it took on Rajeev Misra, formerly of Deutsche Bank, as global head of credit.


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Sources: FT.com, Huffington Post, Google Maps