Financial services
The financial services sector is the UK’s highest profile sector, but not always for the best reasons. The difficulties of the sub-prime crisis and resultant credit crunch as well as negative public reaction to the crises are all well documented. There are also a number of other real issues facing the sector:
- Lack of clarity around the regulation of the hedge fund and private equity industries driving business to Geneva, Singapore etc.
- BASLE 3 and the capital adequacy implications for banks.
- The potential division of global banks into separate investment and retail banking entities.
- The tax regime, both on a personal and corporate level.
- Immigration controls limiting the number of highly-skilled migrants from outside the EU working in London.
However, the fact remains that London is considered by many businesses, across the globe, to be the most important financial services centre, and many leading global organisations both in the financial services sector and outside seek to base not only their European headquarters here but their global headquarters too.
New York will always be a competitor and the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong are very much pretenders to the crown, however, the fact remains that London’s advantages in terms of time-zone, language and being an historical centre for trade still makes the capital a very attractive place to base a business.
The other major advantage London enjoys is the ability to attract top talent to the top institutions; whether it’s a CFO of a FTSE 100 company or the head of debt capital markets for a major Asian bank.
Implications for the executive recruitment market
There is still a need for top talent across the financial services spectrum; UK based financial institutions, whether boutique hedge funds, debt advisory shops, bulge bracket Investment banks or international corporate banks, all still want the best candidates. Whether that be the best head of DCM, project finance or leveraged finance, or the head of risk/credit, senior compliance officer or even CFO, COO or CEO in the market, compromise is never the best option.
Our response
Michael Page Executive Search has leveraged our financial services specialist market knowledge and extensive network to successfully fulfil a variety of mandates including:
- Head of Debt Capital Markets - Japanese bank
- Head of Property Finance – European bank
- Chief Financial Officer – Middle Eastern bank
- Head of Finance – UK bank
- Chief Financial Officer – hedge fund
