Jason Corcoran in Moscow and Harry Wilson
17 Nov 2008
Moscow-based investment bankers are at the sharp end of job cuts
Russian index slumps
It seems like a different age, but it was only recently that Moscow-based investment bankers had firms fighting to secure their services and could command pay packages commensurate with demand.
Senior Moscow-based bankers and those covering the Russian markets asked for and got lucrative pay deals as local brokers and large international investment banks fought a hiring war to build their businesses in the country.
Guaranteed packages in excess of $10m (€7.8m) were not unheard of and even junior staff with experience of the Russian markets received $1m guarantees to join rivals.
In early 2007, Russian investment bank Alfa-Bank recruited the head of UBS’ Moscow office Ed Kaufman for a reputed $20m over two years.
Speaking to Financial News at the time of his hiring by Alfa, Kaufman described his package as “very generous”, while declining to comment on the specifics.
US investment banks including Lehman Brothers spent similar sums to secure top bankers from rivals to give them the entrance they desperately wanted into Russia’s booming natural resources-fuelled economy.
However, after two and a half months in which the Russian stock market has lost 70% of its value and with the oil price at a three-year low, the days of the multi-million dollar guaranteed package are history and the hiring boom has turned on its head as the axe begins to fall on bloated and expensive banking teams.
Last week, Russia’s largest independent investment bank, Troika Dialog, began culling 20% of its workforce with the loss of about 300 jobs. However, the cut could be more severe and as many as 500 jobs are potentially at risk, equal to 35% of its staff.
Troika’s redundancies followed similar cuts at main Moscow-based rival Renaissance Capital, which after accepting a $500m investment from Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov was forced to make hundreds of employees redundant as it cut a quarter of its staff.
Renaissance Capital had become known within the international banking community for its lucrative pay packets, which included large grants of stock and generous guarantees.
In 2007, Renaissance Capital’s total staff compensation bill came to $370m, equating to an average payout of more than $300,000 for each of the firm’s 1,145 employees.
Until recently, Renaissance Capital was deluged with CVs from staff at investment banks looking to escape job cuts in their own firms and join the seemingly invulnerable Russian boom.
Weeks before it was forced to accept Prokhorov’s money, Renaissance Capital hired John Porter, Morgan Stanley’s head of Middle Eastern and African equity capital markets, to lead its growth in the region.
Speaking to Financial News in the wake of Prokhorov’s investment, Renaissance Capital’s co-head of investment banking Andrew Cornthwaite said: “We have always taken the view that if you are involved in these markets you have to accept that some things will go badly wrong from time to time. We are comfortable with that.”
The hiring freeze has hit institutions thought to be relatively immune, such as state-owned bank VTB, which had spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past 18 months building its investment banking business.
In a statement, VTB said it had frozen recruitment and would focus on risk management, setting up a unit to cope with the fallout from the financial crisis.
However, for staff made redundant by Russian investment banks the terms are still generous. Troika employees who lose their jobs will receive between five and eight months’ salary, which in many cases will not be far off the length of time employees had worked for the firm.
International banks are starting to scale back the size of their Russian operations too, just over 10 years after many of the same banks shut up shop in Moscow in the wake of the Russian Government’s default.
A Russian investment banker said: “It is different to 1998. Then, the pull back was focused on Russia; this time it is part of global retrenchment by banks to what they consider their core businesses.”
Rivals say Goldman Sachs is scaling back its staff in Moscow, though a source at the bank said it was currently “assessing market conditions, while the jobs of former ABN Amro employees are likely to be vulnerable in the wake of RBS’ announcement last week that it would make 3,000 redundant in its global banking and markets business.
This is a change from 11 months ago, when bankers such as Merrill Lynch chairman and chief executive John Thain flew into Moscow amid fanfare in the local and international media to meet then President Putin and open the bank’s Moscow office.
One banker at a Russian bank said: “Everyone has been hiring like mad for the last couple of years, but the party is well and truly over now.”
Merrill Lynch insisted it is not cutting staff in Moscow despite widespread rumours it is preparing to dismiss staff and even close the office. One source close to the bank said it was preparing to expand the operation. Despite the sombre mood in the Russian market, fee levels are not far down on 2007 and are substantially up on previous years.
Russian investment banking revenues for the year so far stand at $1.53bn, according to investment banking data provider Dealogic, down 13% on the same point last year, but up more than 50% on the same point in 2006, when fees hit a then record of $1.14bn.
Steve Meehan, head of UBS in Russia, said: “The number of competitors in this market will be reduced dramatically. For the long term, this correction will be positive for banks like us.”
The long-term prognosis for Russia is positive and, despite the fall in oil prices, most admit this is only a temporary blip. One Russian banker said: “The long-term trend has got to be for higher energy prices and Russia will obviously benefit from this. What you’re seeing now is the bursting of a bubble, not the end of Russia.”
Meehan said: “Russia is the only country that has got a top-10 position in all the mineral resources that matter."
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