There are unfortunately many client-facing jobs in financial services where it helps to have the ‘polish’ of an upper middle class upbringing, but if you want to work in the family office of a dynasty with so much money that they need their own people to manage it, it matters more than most.
Family office jobs are thriving, reports Bloomberg. This is especially the case in Singapore, where favorable tax treatment means the number of single family offices went from 400 in 2020 to 1,100 in 2022. But family office jobs are increasing rapidly in Hong Kong and the Middle East too.
As family office jobs explode, rich families can’t find enough rich relatives to work in them. Historically, Bloomberg says this was their preference, but they’re now hiring interns and people who’ve done family office courses too. Some of the most popular courses are run by the Wealth Management Institute in Singapore, the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, the Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy and the DIFC Family Wealth Centre in Dubai.
These courses don’t come cheap – the Lausanne course is $17.5k for three days. But (already rich) people pay them because family office jobs are attractive. If you’re an investment professional, they can offer a lot of freedom to invest across different asset classes. However, they also come with various foibles engendered by interaction with the inordinately wealthy – you might be asked to find schools for the scion’s children or to pick up the mail. At one family office, the patriarch reportedly called up at 11pm and barked that his minions must “buy gold” on the back of a tip from a poker buddy, before putting the phone down.
Separately, if you’re looking for busy bankers in 2023 you need to go to the Middle East. While people elsewhere try to spin drabs of work into full time jobs, Middle East bankers are as busy as ever. Bloomberg notes that IPOs in the Middle East are higher than all but one of the last 10 years (2022). Financial News says that JPMorgan’s London bankers are increasingly working in the Middle East because ‘that’s where client demand is.’
Meanwhile…
Goldman Sachs has 500 data professionals amid its staff of 12,000 technology professionals. They are managed by a man called Neema Raphael, who joined Goldman Sachs in 2003 when he was 22. (Computer Weekly)
Hedge funds are increasingly using ChatGPT for marketing and to summarize large reports. (Bloomberg)
Morgan Stanley hired Gillian Sheldon from Credit Suisse as managing director and vice-chair of the UK investment banking division. (Bloomberg)
BNP Paribas hired Damien Aellen from Credit Suisse for the syndication of Swiss bonds. (FiNews)
UBS plans to either wind-down or sell off the majority of Credit Suisse’s more complex and higher-risk structured loans in APAC. (Bloomberg)
At least six Credit Suisse bankers left UBS in Hong Kong, including Martin Loh, a market group head for China and Joe Lau. (Bloomberg)
Barclays’s quarterly trading revenue is now more volatile than any US or European peer, according to Andrew Coombs, analyst at Citigroup. (Bloomberg)
JPMorgan allegedly facilitated $1.1m in payments from Jeffrey Epstein to girls or women, many of whom had Eastern European surnames. (CNBC)
Conor Hillery, co-head of JPMorgan’s investment bank in EMEA: ““We have an appetite and determination to hire really good people in our chosen areas of growth, whether in good markets or bad. We try not to overreact when times are tough or when they’re good. That takes a lot of discipline.” (Financial News)
Career lessons: Never take a counteroffer. (WSJ)
Career lessons from Richard Handler: People will be horrible and yes, it’s personal. “Eventually instead of bringing you down, it gives you a little extra motivation.” (Business Insider)
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