Chinese banks have looked particularly attractive places to work of late. As we noted last month, mainland firms such as Citic Securities and China Securities are starting to dominate onshore Chinese league tables for mergers and acquisitions, and equity and debt capital markets.
Chinese banks are starting to make a regional impact too – Citic tops the table for ex-Japan Asia investment banking fees so far this year, according to Dealogic data. However, as the South China Morning Post points out, no Chinese player has ever featured in global, US or European deals. This is despite a clear mandate from Beijing, dubbed the “Going Out” strategy, encouraging Chinese corporates to expand overseas.
Their failure (so far) to fully capitalise on China’s internationalisation plans and their poor performance on global league tables still makes mainland banks second-tier employers for bankers seeking global exposure. In fact, Li Ruogu, the former chairman of Export-Import Bank of China and now executive vice president of the International Financial Forum, has told the SCMP that the service offered by Chinese banks to companies with foreign expansion plans is “not up to standard”.
The newspaper also quotes Ma She, deputy director of European affairs at the Ministry of Commerce, who says Chinese banks are serious laggards in their progress for internationalisation and have “underdeveloped” overseas branch networks.
Meanwhile:
Barclays banker is new global private banking head for Standard Chartered (Deal Street Asia)
HSBC is considering moving its headquarters…to Toronto. (Business Insider)
J.P. Morgan fined for dark pool, control failures in Hong Kong. (Reuters)
At Nippon Wealth, Japanese expats take on Hong Kong. (Nikkei)
New Singapore government programme links polytech students to finance giants. (SBR)
The rise of “key man risk” in China. (Finance Asia)
Of 289 billionaires in 1995, only 126 still have $1 billion. (Bloomberg)
Singapore employment growth in first three quarters of 2015 lowest in six years. (Asia One)
UBS Hong Kong country head dresses up as Princess Leia. (South China Morning Post)
Image credit: Mike Watson, moodboard, Thinkstock