I had to laugh this week when I saw that Marcus Bolton, chief executive Americas at Tullett Prebon, had gone in for a bit of mutual backslapping with a headhunter on LinkedIn. “Steve helped us in our search for a salesperson in a very specialised area of the equity markets. His knowledge of the market landscape, what was available and his understanding of what our needs precisely were impressed me greatly at the time. I would not hesitate in using him again or recommending his service to others,” he wrote.
I emailed Bolton to tell him that I’ve been in the markets long enough to know how this really works: Harry Headhunter takes target down the pub and taps them up. Tulletts can’t ‘do’ GFI/BGC/Icap – and vice versa – so Harry acts as the counterparty. The very day after I wrote the email, news seeped out that Bolton had lost 22 high-yield bond brokers in New York to BGC.