MBAs who earned their degrees from top schools like Harvard and Wharton earn more than $1 million than their peers over 20 years, according to a BusinessWeek story . Those earning MBAs from the 57 top programs earned $2.4 million over a 20-year career. Harvard grads topped the ranking with $3.6 million in salary and bonuses, while the University at Buffalo brought its alumni about $1.7 million. Experts explain the... Read more

The recent announcement by DealBook that the Chinese brokerage house Citic Securities will buy a 20% stake in the brokerage and research arms of Crédit Agricole for $374 million is but the latest in a string of deals between Chinese and Western financial firms. Morgan Stanley said today that it was creating a joint venture with China Fortune Securities, while Citigroup and Orient Securities said this month that they,... Read more

The financial sector is set to shrink its headcount to reflect sliding valuations that have reached their lowest ratio to the S&P 500 since 2009, according to a Bloomberg report . Net revenue at BofA, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are expected to drop 3.7% in Q2, the fourth year-over-year decline in five quarters. Experts including Meredith Whitney expect this trend will result in Wall Street... Read more

The UK’s five-largest banks—RBS, Llyods, Standard Chartered, HSBC and Barclays— have eliminated more than 103,000 jobs – or 11% of their headcount -- since 2008, with more to come, according to a Bloomberg story. At least 34,500 of the cuts were made in Britain, and the biggest layoffs were at the government assisted RBS and Llyods. One analyst summed up the reason: “The underlying trend is trying to make the... Read more

The CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals, announced today that 144,900 candidates from 162 countries have registered for the CFA exam in June 2011. That's a four percent increase of the number of candidates that registered last June. The CFA says the increase reinforces "the strong commitment among finance professionals to high standards of ethics, education and professional excellence, which the CFA Program demands." Overall, there were 209,945 registrations for... Read more

With fewer deals to grab, buyout specialists are shifting gears as asset managers that run hedge funds and strip malls. Blackstone is earning twice as much from owning property as from buyouts; Carlyle has morphed into a fund-of-funds business by taking over hedge funds; and KKR now owns a stake in a 5,500-mile U.S. pipeline and lends to distressed companies, according to a Bloomberg article. The story goes on to... Read more

Six areas where banks are still busting to hire people in the front office Now that equities recruitment appears to be falling out of favor and fixed income headhunters are speaking of hiring freezes, it’s tempting to assume that there’s not much hiring happening in the front office and that only finance, risk and compliance professionals can find jobs. [Luxembourg] It’s not easy to find talent in Asian wealth management but... Read more

Sometimes using recruiters works better than applying directly to banks. And if you put in extra effort when choosing your consultants, your career could benefit. Here are some reasons why. 1) Screen and select There’s a limited number of large financial services firms and it’s difficult to look into the quality of their internal hiring teams. But recruitment firms are comparatively plentiful, so you should at least be able to find... Read more

BlackRock’s stock fell 16% last year, but its chairman and CEO Laurence Fink, took home $23.8 million in 2010, topping Bloomberg’s ranking of top-paid financial executives, according to this story . Prudential’s John Strangfeld came in second with $22.6 million, while insurer AON came in third by paying its head Gregory Chase $20.8 million. Average compensation for Finance 50 CEOs who held the same job in 2009 rose 26% to... Read more

A study released today by The Business Journals shows that employment in the financial sector has rebounded in 21 states, but New York isn't one of them. In fact, the survey found that New York has lost 64,400 financial-services jobs in the past 10 years. California, with its decline of 70,600 jobs over the past decade is the only state to lose more. The study shows that 21 states have more... Read more

An estimated three out of four (75%) of US broker-dealer and independent registered investment advisory (RIA) firms plan to hire up to 30 percent more employees over the next 12 months, according to a new poll conducted by Fidelity Investments. According to the poll, firm executives reveal that their top staffing priority in 2011 is to recruit new advisors/brokers that have existing books of business followed by those who plan... Read more

An estimated three out of four (75%) of US broker-dealer and independent registered investment advisory (RIA) firms plan to hire up to 30 percent more employees over the next 12 months, according to a new poll conducted by Fidelity Investments. According to the poll, firm executives reveal that their top staffing priority in 2011 is to recruit new advisors/brokers that have existing books of business followed by those who plan to... Read more

The industry seems to have an insatiable appetite for personnel in wealth management. BNY Mellon, Barclays and UBS all announced strategic hires in the past few weeks. There’s quite of bit of poaching going on, so expect bidding up of comp and bonus. Smith Barney is just one, noting the need to keep salaries high for financial advisers, as Bank of America and UBS steal away top performers. The new... Read more

Let the good times roll. Last year the job turnover rate on Wall Street was up a mighty 25% over 2009 – with the sweet spot being for jobs paying between $100,000 and $200,000 with annual bonuses of 10% to 15%, according to a story in the NY Post, which reports: “More staff than ever before are prepared to job hop in search of higher salaries, career advancement, bonuses, fringe... Read more

Cities like New York, Chicago and Boston most often come to mind when one considers a job in financial services. And recently we pointed out how different areas of the country such as Salt Lake City, Seattle and the Raleigh-Cary region of North Carolina were also becoming financial centers. But would you believe a new survey shows the top city to find a finance job today is actually, San Francisco. The... 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

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

While the Bloomberg BusinessWeek annual undergraduate business school ranking turned out few surprises, a peek into the student-survey based rankings of 139 of the nation’s undergrad programs had a few unexpected results. The article today states: “In the recent ranking, you would assume that Rensselaer Polytechnic's Lally School of Management and Technology, ranked No.43, is a middle-of-the-pack business program. You wouldn't know that the school ranks No.1 in both... 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