The Senior Market:

The senior end of the market has been very busy this year with JP Morgan leading the way in appointing strategic hires at “Global Head of” and MD level. It will be an exciting time for them as a business next year having recently moving their hedge fund business back into their IFSC office.

There has been quite a bit of movement in the sales space also with HSBC appointing of a Head of Cross Border Sales Europe who will be based locally and MUFG appointing an Executive Director of Business Development. Other notable hires were at Capita who appointed a head of operations earlier in the year.

We predict a lot of activity at this end of the market in Q1 next year but no action will likely take place until Q2 and Q3 as people will hold off until they receive their annual bonus before making the move.

New Entrants to the Market:

Fidelity International have been the most active in recruitment market since setting up their new Dublin office earlier in the year. We have also seen a number of boutiques such as Virtus, Opus & Alter Domus enter in the Irish market, specialising in credit, private equity and hedge funds,

The Changing Landscape:

We have seen a significant shift in the Irish funds industry over the last 12 months due to increased regulation, improved technology and offshoring. There has been a significant decrease in the volume of recruitment this year and this is a trend that that is set to stay with the industry having moved from a focus on operations to a client service and oversight model.

We believe this to be a positive shift as our clients will be looking to hire more high profile and skilled positions in areas such as private equity, middle office, fund oversight, depository, risk, compliance, technology, advisory and relationship management. A real plus to the industry will be more investment banking middle office and operations type positions, conditional on Brexit having a positive impact on the Irish FS industry.

Brexit:

On the back of Brexit there was a lot of excitement about Canary Wharf firms relocating to the IFSC, from speaking to people in both the London and local market the big banks are under pressure from their Shareholders to make Brexit strategy plans with this likely be executed in Q1 and Q2 next year, dependant on when the UK invoke article 50. The positions that will initially move across will be in Product, Risk, Trading, Compliance and Operations it will be a long-term process due to regulation approval and securing suitable commercial space.

There is a strong argument to suggest that the FS market will see no major downside as a result Brexit. If it is a soft Brexit then we would assume this to encompass fairly lose trade and “passporting” agreements between the UK and the EU which should mean fairly low impact on Brexit to the Irish FS environment. If we have a hard Brexit then the UK based FS firms will have to look at alternative options with Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin being the most obvious choices. Dublin is highly likely to benefit from this. Obviously, our infrastructure is a problem so to suggest that 1000’s of jobs will relocate to Dublin is a bit farfetched but any increase will be a plus to the Irish FS industry.

If you require any further information contact us at hello@camden.ie.