February 2010

Macaskill on markets: UBS and Citadel show it’s not easy to staff an investment bank

It seems an odd time to devote resources to building an investment banking franchise.


 

Jon Macaskill is one of the leading capital markets and derivatives journalists, with over 20 years’ experience covering financial markets from London and New York. Most recently he worked at one of the biggest global investment banks

A newfound zeal for increased regulation among politicians has heightened uncertainty over key revenue sources. And there are signs that the astonishing boom in bank profits in 2009 was a one-time windfall. But experienced financiers persist in trying to develop competitors to the oligopoly that emerged from the crash of 2008.

UBS and Citadel represent approaches to the same goal from opposite directions. UBS retained a corporate finance capacity while gutting its sales and trading after losing more than $50 billion in the crash. It is now rebuilding a full-scale sales and trading operation while hoping that outflows in its core private-client business will eventually be stemmed. Citadel has relaunched its...


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