Russian banks back on the hunt for talent

Financial News

Jason Corcoran in Moscow
31 Jul 2009

VTB Capital and Troika Dialog have both boosted their equity sales and trading desks as recruiters report a summer uptick in hiring by Moscow-based investment banks.

State-controlled VTB has hired Vlad Markovskiy from UBS and Denis Gorvat from ING for its equity trading operation.

The bank, which launched just over a year ago, wants to build on its success in debt capital markets by building out an equity brokerage. VTB is ranked number two in the league table of arrangers of Eurobonds in the Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States debt capital markets for the first six months of 2009, according to data provider CBonds.

Separately, domestic peer Troika has hired Jim Bevan and Marcus Martin in London to replace a sales and trading team that quit for VTB in June. Both join from Nomura International in London.

The pair, will replace Will Lynch, Peter Walker and Richard Phillips who left to join VTB’s growing presence in London, one of its three global hubs.

VTB and Troika are the latest hires from banks in Moscow, where recruitment is beginning to pick up, according to headhunters.

Taras Rybak, a managing partner at headhunters Brain Source, said: “The hiring freeze at the bulge brackets and the Russian banks in Moscow ended several months ago. Most banks are looking to hire selectively now that the domestic recovery has spread from M&A and the equity markets to the debt capital markets.”

Bank of America Merrill Lynch last week recruited Sergey Babayan from Russian bank MDM as managing director and co-head of the bank’s global markets team in Moscow. Russian brokerages Aton Captial and Otrkritie have been also hiring.

The relaunched investment banking business of Aton has hired Ivan Nikolaev and Maxim Kabanov as a senior analyst and vice president of equity and fixed income sales, respectively. Both had previously been employed by Renaissance Capital.

Otrkrite has also tapped a former Rencap employee having hired George Zarya as senior sales executive for DMA (direct market access), which allows buy-side institutions to access liquidity venues without having to go through an execution desk. Zarya had been at Rencap for over three years working on international DMA sales until a month ago.