Bank of America is bulking up in its small business banking unit. BOA announced today that It plans to hire over 1,000 new small business bankers across the nation. In fact, to continue its hiring spree, the bank announced that it has already hired more than 75 small business bankers in the mid-Atlantic area, including Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. According to BOA, the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area... Read more

M&A activity between developed and emerging markets is nearing record highs, according to the Wall St. Journal. Acquisitions or mergers of emerging market companies led by those in developed economies stands at $76.3 billion year-to-date, while emerging market outbound M&A activity stands at $56.1 billion—the second highest on record, and representing 21 percent of all M&A volume by emerging markets. Oil is the strongest sector, followed by health care and... Read more

Citigroup, which earns about $1 billion from the Middle East, has hired former U.S. diplomat Dennis Flannery to expand its Iraq division over the next three to five years, Bloomberg reports. The Amman based unit will grow its trade finance and syndicated lending services to some of the Iraq ’s 44 public and private banks, as well as advise on government finance projects in the oil, gas, power and housing... Read more

In Universum’s annual ranking of undergraduate college students’ favorite employers, banks, Big Four accounting and oil firms fell in estimation to sexier companies like Apple, Walt Disney and Google – the later of which came out on top in the survey’s rankings. In fact, “Nearly one of five business students told Universum they wanted to work for Google, up from 16.6 percent in 2010,” BusinessWeek reported. The top 10... Read more

JPMorgan Chase named former Barclays M&A banker Drago Rajkovic to lead the bank's technology-related mergers and acquisitions group.[DealBook] UBS hired Kenneth Cohen, who oversaw commercial-mortgage bonds at Lehman. [Bloomberg] Kevin Cox, formerly head of Americas investment banking at UBS, is joining Citigroup as co-chairman of global industrials banking. [DealBook] Old Mutual Asset Management, the hedge fund arm of the London-based life insurer, is set to name Steve Belgrad... Read more

Johnson Associates are predicting moderate increases in incentive compensation across the financial services industry this year, but they expect that in most cases, bonuses will remain below the highs of 2007. The compensation specialists say key drivers impacting bonuses are "the pace of the recent economic recovery, varying impact of regulation on business activities both globally and regionally, mix of business, and ongoing uncertainty in world markets." As for where they... Read more

HSBC plans to close offices and cut headcount in an effort to cut costs by as much as $3.5 billion over the next three years to improve profitability, which it said could be hurt by stricter financial regulation, according to BusinessWeek and DealBook. One of the biggest European banks, HSBC said it would focus on commercial banking activities and wealth management, while scaling back its retail banking operations to the... Read more

This could be a good year for job seekers in the financial sector. The latest eFinancialCareers survey released today found that nearly two out of three (62.1%) financial professionals plan on moving to a new employer in 2011. Moreover, four out of five (80.5%) say their current employer has not offered them any positive incentives to stop them from jumping ship. Perhaps an even more important statistic in terms of... Read more

M&A is looking good. This, according to a Bloomberg article quoting Evercore’s Roger Altman, who predicts the current upswing in deal-making will peak to exceed the record $4 trillion of takeovers at the height of the 2007 merger boom. Altman says M&A cycles tend to last five to seven years, and we are currently two years in. According to the article, hot dealmaking industries include natural resources, health care,... Read more

U.S. Bancorp plans to hire 70 to 80 people for its newly created program aimed to help ultra-high-net-worth individuals “focus on wealth-transfer goals rather than only wealth accumulation,” according to an Investment News article. The Minneapolis based bank has hired several Wells Fargo executives to steer the initiative, called Ascent Private Capital Management, including chairman and CEO Richard Davis. Other news: Bernanke signaled that the central bank is... Read more

What will it mean for Bank of America's staff now that the company has made clear it plans to merge its corporate and investment banking divisions? Consolidation often means squeezing out employees, but in this case, probably not so much, says recruiter Richard Lipstein of Boyden Executive Search in New York. Lipstein doubts the latest changes will lead to downsizing and sees them as essentially hierarchical in nature—focusing predominantly on... Read more

Banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are hiring more senior bankers and salespeople in their foreign-exchange operations, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reports: “Banks are snapping up Wall Street staffers disappointed by pay that was down some 10 percent to 15 percent in 2010, including bonuses with a higher component of unpopular restricted stock.” Hiring is especially strong in electronic trade-execution platforms, as well... Read more

The Seattle-Northwest Securities Corporation (SNW) and its wholly-owned subsidiary SNW Asset Management today announced 4 new hires in San Francisco and Seattle and has openings in Fixed Income sales and Investment Management in Seattle and Public Finance in Salt Lake City. As part of its commitment to public finance and expanding its presence in California, SNW has hired Alejandro Caminos as Vice President to start its San Francisco office. He comes... Read more

Jefferies Group is growing by leaps and bounds, with recent news of plans to buy Prudential’s 400-person commodities and financial-derivatives unit for about $400 million, according to the Wall Street Journal which writes: “The potential transaction underscores the ambitions of Jefferies to grow from a securities-industry boutique focused on stock trading into a full-service investment bank that helps clients raise money and trade stocks, bonds and derivatives, where investors and... Read more

Banks, as well as investment and asset management firms, seem to want it all from their job applicants. Don’t even mention hedge funds and private equity. In their search for the “perfect” and well-seasoned candidate, the list of job requirements is becoming longer than the Brady Bunch’s grocery list. Steven Pincus, managing director for TTI of USA, an executive recruiter, notes, “Client job descriptions, more often than not, do have... Read more

Banco Santander topped Bloomberg's inaugural listing of green banks thanks to its in-house conservation efforts and focus on eco-minded deals. Goldman Sachs came in No. 2 overall and topped the list in green investing. The Madrid based bank has closed 40 energy-related deals so far this year, 90 percent of which were in renewable energy. The ranking of 188 banks worldwide with market capitalizations of at least $10 million was based... Read more

It seems like the old boys’ network is alive and well on Wall Street, if only because guys know how to make one another feel like part of the team even before a relationship’s been established. Connie Thanasoulis-Cerrachio, head of career coaching firm SixFigureStart, recently observed this clearly when she and some colleagues interviewed asset management analyst recruits from top undergraduate colleges and universities. Some of the male interviewers greeted... Read more

Although Barclays refuses to comment on a UBS analysts report suggesting the investment bank consider relocating from London to dodge British capitgal rules, New York City Mayor Bloomberg is rooting for a move to New York City. According to the New York Times, Bloomberg has not offered any incentives but quotes him as saying: "I hope they move here; it'd be great for us.” Both London-based UBS and Standard Chartered have... Read more

The M&A market is headed for even better times, according to a new study examined by the New York Times [NYT] Of the 40 top M&A bankers and lawyers surveyed by the PR firm Brunswick Group, 92 percent said they expect the rest of this year to bring continued strong growth in mergers and acquisitions. Much of that confidence can be attributed to the proposed mega merger of AT&T and T-Mobile.... Read more

The financial crisis and implosion of one of Wall Street's mainstays hasn't slowed down former Bear Stearns executives, many of whom are now running bond businesses at their onetime rivals, according to BusinessWeek. Examples include Michael Nierenberg, who now heads Bank of America's global mortgage and securitized-products business; Jeffrey Verschleiser, who runs mortgage operations at Goldman Sachs; Scott Eichel, now Royal Bank of Scotland's global head of securitized products and... Read more