Asian Markets

[cstassen]

Hi All

I heard the head of Morgan Stanleys asia desk in NY say that if you work in asia, you will become MD 5 years faster than in NY/London (more or less). But I was wondering:

if you are working for a major investment bank lige MS or GS, what kind of jobs can you get in India/China, disregarding investment banking?

Any inputs would be highly appreciated!

 

[tigergb]

quant risk, structure, trading...
for instance, you can see from my old post http://www.mathfinance.cn/quant-salary/, where you can see quant salary survey results and types of jobs in Asian market , hope it helps

 

[luso]

There are tons of IB jobs in Singapore, Tokyo, HK. All the regional IB operations are in those 3 cities. Of cuz there are always M&A jobs in India, and China.
The key is are you local or willing to become local? How much u know about Asian markets?

 

[cstassen]

I know quite a bit about asian markets, as I've read a lot on the subject and also followed courses at Princeton about it. "become a local" - what does that mean? I'm very open towards new cultures (plus I have an indian fiancee, so in that space I am semi-local), but don't speak a bit hindi or mandarin or ...

i currently work in markets (credit trading&sales), would like to continue that, but how many opportunities would there be to do that in markets like china/india/...? and what are the prospects?

 

[bluechimp]

cstassen:

This is slightly tangential, but are you dead set on becoming an MD at a large investment bank? Bright talents from investment banks get poached all the time into buyside firms, preferably with a better compensation structure. I feel that you should be taking that possibility into consideration when planning your career.

One thing about working in an investment bank is that it tends to be quite political and hierarchical on the upper level of managements. I'm guessing that more often than not, MDs are more focused in managing people and selling their businesses -- two things that I don't necessarily dislike, but I'm more interested in running money. The reason I'm saying this is because I've seen my friends go into investment banks, aspiring to make it as soon as possible to MD status, only to reverse their course when they figured out what the job really entails. Of course, if that is what you like, then more power to you.

Specifically regarding Asia, I'm hearing that financial engineering is still mostly nascent there. You can probably see green shoots of securitization in Singapore or Hong Kong, but it will not be as sophisticated as it is in NY/London (I'm leaving Tokyo out, since it's a different beast altogether). I'd guess that more traditional finance such as private equity and M&A will gain traction first before financial engineering does. My experience talking to people on the ground indicates that most business have not yet gained the financial sophistication to produce demand for exotic financial instruments.. yet.

 

[cstassen]

hi bluechimp, thanks a lot for your reply.

No, i'm not as such set to go straight for MD, just used that reference as to show the possibility of fast advance. I generally don't try to lock myself in to anything, as I think that might both be dangerous and also exclude one from interesting possibilities as you say. I also agree on the political thing - the most talented guy at my desk is a VP, but should have become MD this year, but due to personal stuff he didn't!

Regarding the market, I think you are right - it seems like there's not much FE going on (a little more sales than trading it seems, I'm in structured sales), but that's perhaps not a bad thing as this means one could enter the market in a few years and still be "a pioneer" (i.e. advance fast to MD, haha).

On a side note, does anyone have an idea of what the gap is between salespeople and public side traders in the major inv banks in salary? And is that diff smaller/larger in Asia?