Insight

Congratulations to Singapore for being chosen to be the proud host city of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games!
Shouts of jubilation rang through Singapore Centre in London when it was announced at 11am (GMT) that Singapore will be the proud host of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010.
While part of the joy undoubtedly has to do with some of us meeting our performance targets with this announcement, the pride in the atmosphere is unmistakable.
This Olympian effort epitomises what Singapore as a country is all about – vision, desire to succeed and common purpose. Around the world, we are recognised for our honesty, integrity and commitment to fair play, and we share the IOC values of excellence, friendship and respect.
Come 2010, over 5,000 athletes and officials will descend upon our shores to participate in what promises to be the highlight of our youth sporting calendar in that year. What an opportunity it will be to showcase to the rest of the world what Singapore is all about!
I cannot wait …

Singapore is the best place to move for those seeking a new life overseas, according to research.
(12.46p.m. online)
 Singapore is the best place to move for those seeking a new life overseas, according to research.
 
The city state has topped a survey of the ideal destinations for ex-patriates, based on living standards, financial opportunities and accommodation.

 
The research, which was based on the opinions of 2,155 ex-patriates living in four continents, also asked how easy arrivals had found it to integrate into their new surroundings, how much they were enjoying their new lifestyle and how their children had adjusted to the relocation.
 
The United Arab Emirates and the United States are the next best choices for emigrants, according to the survey, which was done by the bank HSBC International.
 
However there was bad news for destinations closer to home. Jersey was ranked only the 15th most desirable places to live, with apparently poor accommodation and a low level of luxury on offer to ex-pats.
 
And the channel island only just propped up the mainland, with the United Kingdom finishing in 14th place. The UK was found to be the most expensive country for new foreigners to find accommodation, with more than 85 per cent of respondents saying that their living costs had increased after moving here. Even France did better, finishing 13th.
 
Hong Kong was found to be the place to go for ex-pats seeking to boost their pay packets. Almost half of all foreigners living there said they were now earning more than £100,000 a year, with those in the financial and management sectors claiming to be the most handsomely rewarded.
 
For those moving abroad and able to afford it, the report also provided details of the most luxurious locations. Based on countries’ access to private healthcare, opportunities to own more than one property and availability of domestic staff, the United Arab Emirates was rated most highly, followed by Singapore and India.
 
The top 15 countries for expatriates:
 
1. Singapore
2. United Arab Emirates
3. United States
4. Belgium
5. Hong Kong
6. Germany
7. Netherlands
8. Canada
9. India
10. Australia
11. China
12. Spain
13. France
14. United Kingdom
15. Jersey

Singapore is top destination for ex-pats
By Jon Swaine
Telegraph
25 Jul 2008

Skilled talent still in demand in times of difficulty.
These days, it is not difficult to be disheartened (and distracted) by headline figures of jobs losses and economic slowdowns. A recent Reuters poll showed that Singapore‘s economy will contract by 1.1% in 2009, a substantive reversal from its original projection of 4.9% growth only 2 months before.  This shows how confidence can be easily eroded by the relentless onslaught of negativity in the past 6 months.
Underlying the gory headlines, there is a silver lining. That is, skilled talent will be in demand, in good times and bad. A recent Economist article highlighted how while the businesses in Asia will slow, the demand for talented and skilled managers will not.  http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12638634
Recruiters are still very much looking for talent in the engineering, research & development, professional services (accounting, legal and consulting etc), and yes financial services sectors. This is borne out by a recent trip by Chinese financial institutions to global cities like London and New York to recruit displaced professionals. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2bd85a12-bd7f-11dd-bba1-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
As at end Nov 2008, there are still more than 600 professional job postings (each posting may refer to more than one vacancy) on Contact Singapore’s job portal put up by employers in the very same sectors mentioned above. www.contactsingapore.sg/jobs
We always hear how talent is mobile and will go where the gold is.  In the inter-connected world that we are in today, fortunes of developed and emerging economies rise and fall almost in tandem (notice how nobody is talking about the Asia decoupling now).  It will be interesting to see how the global war for talent pans out as the world enters into possibly its worst slowdown in 70 years, where almost no country (not even China and India) is spared.  It is almost like the deck of "fortune" cards are being re-shuffled and odds of success re-calculated. Which card will come out on top? Which will move up the heap?
We hear well-argued debates on what monetary and fiscal policies different countries should adopt to stabilise their banking systems and reboot their economies. One suspects it would also be the countries with the most progressive work pass policies to attract and retain talent that would emerge stronger and much more prepared to catch the next wave of growth.

PS: Professionals who wish to go to Singapore to explore business and career opportunities can consider applying for the Personalised Employment Pass (PEP) which facilitates entry, stay and work in Singapore, without the need to secure a job first: -http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/PEP.html
 

Cantor expands in Singapore, targets hedge funds.
A report in Reuters, May 9, Friday.
SINGAPORE, May 8 – U.S. broker Cantor Fitzgerald & Co is expanding its Asian equities and derivatives business to Singapore, targeting sales to institutional clients such as hedge funds, an executive said on Thursday.

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"We chose Singapore due to the fact that it has become one of the newest destinations in Asia for hedge funds," William Selig, a managing director at the firm who will head the local office, told Reuters.
"The Singapore government’s foresight in developing a global financial hub attracted us here."
New York-based hedge fund manager Galleon Group is also setting up a Singapore office to manage its $1.1 billion Asian long/short equity fund, and to venture into new fund products, banking sources told Reuters last month.
Cantor’s expansion is in contrast to a number of large financial institutions, which have shed jobs aggressively in recent months.
Wall Street investment banks, stung by debt losses, have axed tens of thousands of jobs, but even more significant reductions are expected amidst a bleaker earnings outlook.
Selig said the focus was to provide execution services to institutions, such as hedge funds and corporates. It has a team of five sales staff, but plans to hire more, he added.
The number of hedge funds in Singapore rose 76 percent to 190 in 2006, while assets managed by these funds rose 150 percent to $26 billion, according to central bank data.
With the addition of Singapore, Cantor Fitzgerald has offices in 30 locations around the world, including Hong Kong.
 

Estimates showed that there has been a 20 to 25 per cent increase each year in the number of Western bankers heading to centres such as Singapore for the past two years.
From the Times April 21 2008
by Rhys Blakey in Bombay
 
The tale has been circulating since the new year of a beleaguered Wall Street bank that told its senior rainmakers to prepare to relocate to an emerging market or to leave the firm.
As one executive is reputed to have said, with deals drying up in London and New York, it was a case of “Mumbai, Dubai, Shanghai – or goodbye”.
Now that story is looking less and less apocryphal. As jobs are cut in the City and in Manhattan, the pace of the bankers’ exodus to the East is accelerating.
Naomi Molson, a senior private equity banker based in London for Merrill Lynch, is the latest. She will move to Hong Kong to head the group’s Asian general industries division.
Ms Molson had chaired Merrill’s European financial sponsors group, which caters to private-equity clients, but that is a sector in which deals have all but died in the wake of the credit crunch.
The internal memo announcing her transfer spelt out the reasons: “Within the Pacific Rim, China and India, in particular, represent some of our greatest opportunities,” it said.
“Accordingly, we must align with them our most senior and successful bankers.”
The City had already lost several big-hitters in the same way.
Morgan Stanley has moved Scott Matlock, a mergers and acquisitions star, to Hong Kong from London to become chairman of Asian M&A, a newly created role. Owen Thomas, the bank’s head of asset management, was appointed Asia chief executive.
Late last year, Barclays Capital moved Ivan Ritossa, its global head of foreign exchange, from the City to Singapore.
Citigroup shifted Ted Kuh out of London to Hong Kong to head the Asian consumer and healthcare investment banking division, a path since trodden by others at the same bank.
Back at Merrill, Jayanti Bajpai, who had worked in London previously, was appointed chief of investment banking in Bombay.
Frank Hancock, the head of corporate finance in India for ABN Amro and one of the architects of Tata’s £4.3 billion acquisition of Corus in 2006, says that the trend for talent to be drawn to India has gathered pace over the past three or four years.

“It’s happening not necessarily because of the troubles in the West – where today there are certainly fewer deals to be done – but because of the rise of India as an economic power,” he said.
A spokesman for Merrill’s Asian business said that the division was now “lucky enough to be able to cherry- pick” senior talent from Britain and the United States.
“The engineering behind deals here is very different and far more attractive to a senior banker than the plain vanilla stuff and 1 per cent growth you may see in the West,” he said.
For dealmakers unhappy at the prospect of standing idle, Asia, which has emerged from the sub-prime debacle relatively unscathed, is an obvious destination.
So far this year, mergers and acquisitions activity involving Asian companies has fallen by only 1 per cent, compared with 2007, according to Thomson Financial, the data provider.
Globally, there has been a 27 per cent drop. Not including Japan, Asia accounts for nearly a fifth of global M&A, a share set to rise as the financial pendulum swings East.
Not all institutions are pressing on at full speed. UBS, which has taken Europe’s biggest sub-prime hit, is dithering on long-term plans to launch a wealth management business in India after an upheaval in its top management, according to sources close to the process.
Yet how long can it cling to the old way of doing things, to the era of the suitcase banker, who flies in to meet clients before jetting back to London, Hong Kong or New York?
In the past two years, Goldman Sachs, Merrill and Morgan Stanley have left local joint ventures in Bombay to set up independent operations.
Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers have opened new offices. Moreover, most of them are hiring and few are finding it difficult to attract Western personal.
Sudarshan Narayan, managing director of Clark & Kent, the Asian-focused headhunters, estimates that there has been a 20 to 25 per cent increase each year in the number of Western bankers heading to centres such as Singapore for the past two years.
He expects the trend to increase sharply this year: “Dealmakers don’t want to sit on their hands back home.”
Alan Rosling, executive director at Tata and Sons, the holding company for the Indian conglomerate that has bought Land Rover and Jaguar, said: “The investment bankers have woken up to India. You can have a hell of a lot of fun in Bombay these days.”
Which cut is the deepest?

—Citigroup announced 9,000 new job cuts last week, on top of about 21,000 globally at the bank in the past year. About 300 of the latest losses will be in London
—Merrill Lynch revealed a further $6.5billion hit on Thursday and said that it would cut another 4,000 jobs worldwide, of which about 400 are expected to come in the City
—On the same day it emerged that UBS was preparing to cut 900 banking staff in London. About 10 per cent of its workforce in the City will go as part of a larger global cutback that could involve the loss of 4,000 jobs
—Cuts are expected at Bear Stearns, which employs 14,000, after its merger with JPMorgan
—Wachovia, the fourth-largest U.S. bank, plans to lose 500 jobs
—JPMorgan estimates that 40,000 City jobs could go in the wake of the credit crunch.
—The dot-com crash cost an estimated 15,300 jobs in London, according to the Centre for Economic and Business Research