Structured Debt & Loan Markets

1. How is the current recruitment environment?

Lower corporate and M&A activity means Structured Debt and Loan Markets have been tighter and as such hiring has been leaner than in prior years.
With some deal activity local and global firms will be looking to add to their teams, mainly Associate and VP level to help execute transactions – this will be for Q1 and Q2 in 2012.
Uncertainty in the European and US markets, has resulted in a general hesitancy in desire (verses ability) to hire.
Firms are taking longer to make hiring decisions (understandably) and with extended notice periods, start dates from assignment commencement can be many months.

2. Any trends observed in the last 12 months?

There have been a few senior hires (most/all direct) with junior-mid level hiring to assist in the broader Loan Markets and Leveraged/Acquisition teams. This was in anticipation of more transactions coming to market.
Project Finance is still busy on deals – especially in specialist sector like resources and infrastructure – but those teams have been relatively steady through both up and down markets … so not translating to lots of demand in hiring.
Structured and Asset Finance remains very quiet and expected to remain so into next year.
Still seems to be more evidence of combined Loan Markets teams (across all loan products) especially in global firms.

3. Any views on the next 12 months?

Is hard to know with so many variables … if Europe manages to stabilise and global firms open their appetite to structured debt deals then we could see some activity and hiring of this … but do expect this to be delayed compared to prior years.
Sponsors have started to return on transactions, so there will be some pent up demand going into 2012 for Leveraged & Acquisition Finance – we hope !
In addition there are a number of loan refinancings coming to market in 2012, so it comes down to risk appetite, ability to structure and execute these deals, as well as general timing.

4. Any particular interesting observations or case studies seen recently?

Any new entrants we are seeing – some European and some Asian – are tending to be quite bespoke in how they focus their local operation.
Far from the heady days of looking at full-service banking operations, its more in line with successful global lines of business or sector – where risk is understood and there are demonstrable track records.