Bankers typically test the job market after their bonus checks are revealed, and there has already been a flurry of musical chairs among financial institutions.
UBS’ co-head of ECM, Alex Dignam, resigned to join the Northcott family’s private investment vehicle Wattlestone. And Goldman Sachs’ co-head of equities, Ben Clifford, left the bank in pursuit of a role in funds management, Street Talk reported on Wednesday.
RBC Capital Markets raided ANZ last month, hiring Harald Eikeland to lead its debt capital markets syndicate desk, while Aware Super pinched former ANZ leveraged finance capital markets banker Leo Yang for a portfolio management role.
Despite the moves, job recruiters expect a slowdown in moves this year, compared to 2022, when bankers welcomed higher-than-usual bonus checks.
Resumes are flying around the market, but many bankers – who demand high salaries – are wary of joining a new firm ahead of a weaker year for deals and cost-cutting.
Last year, revenues at investment banking and trading houses were stronger and bosses upped base pay to keep staff and hired senior rainmakers to win business.
Corbett the boomerang
Mr Corbett joined ANZ’s graduate program in 2000 and then joined the Australian bank’s institutional business in London, where he worked on derivatives and cash trading until 2005.
Chris Corbett, head of rates trading for Australia, ANZ.
He spent six years in Asia with Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs before joining JPMorgan’s AUD-NZD swaps business.
In his new role, Mr Corbett will report to Trevor Vail and Rakesh Jampala, the co-heads of ANZ’s fixed income business. Mr Jampala was also head of trading rates for Australia, in addition to his position as co-head of fixed income.
Mr Corbett’s arrival, however, enables Mr Jampala to relinquish his duties as rates head, the spokeswoman said.
ANZ, for the seventh consecutive year, was the number one institutional bank for overall market penetration in the 2022 Peter Lee Associates large corporate and institutional relationship banking survey.
Peter Lee surveys ask institutional investors to rank various categories of banking and finance like sell-side analysts and sales and trading desks.
ANZ was also the top bank in Australian dollar-denominated bond issuance last year, with about 15 per cent of total market share for new transactions, Refinitiv data showed.