Capital2 in the news.

A piece on our plans to develop the local market around Sophia Antipolis and Monaco (no apologies made for the cheesey photo):

http://www.investincotedazur.com/fr/newsletter/index.php?txt=act9325

Capital2 bosses speak at HEC Paris

February 12th, Capital2 Solutions founder Sam Kirby gave a talk to the 2009 MBA class at  HEC Paris (France’s top business school). The subject was the Hiring Markets for 2009 / 2010 and the hour long presentation gave rise to some healthy questions and debate at the end of the talk.

Recession? The end of Free market capitalism? Run for the Hills!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having blogged quite a bit earlier this year on the sub prime issues, we have stayed away from doing so purely because it has been impossible to keep up with the various banks collapsing, being taken over, nationalised etc. We also predicted the recession was part of a cycle… this has been proved to be an optimistic view.

At time of writing the US congress’ bailout bill has yet to be adopted (defeated when put to the vote), the european nations are burying their heads in the sand and the markets are in turmoil. So is it time to start stockpiling food and living in your cellar?

Well, no, not really. What the past few days have shown us is that governments do not actually subscribe to the ‘free market’ theory as so famously championed by Greenspan. When it comes to the crunch (and to vote losing economic hardship!) governments will intervene on the markets to prop up failing institutions. Is this right?

Well yes and no. Yes if ordinary consumers’ property and savings are in danger. No if the bank has speculated purely to accumulate wealth for itself. Call us old fashioned but we feel the purpose of a bank is to finance the economy, not to make themselves rich to the detriment of the rest of the economy. Some of the greed that has been exhibited has been quite astounding. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Where to now? We think the economic situation will not bottom out until the summer of 2009, and then will begin to show growth for the last quarter of the year. It will be a tough period for many, but if this means a return to the parsimonius and non debt-reliant outlook of previous generations then this can only be a healthy development.

Good luck everybody!

Sub Prime woes continue. Boooooooo

France’s biggest retail bank Credit Agricole made a loss in the last three months of 2007, hit by a hefty charge at its Calyon investment banking arm. Credit Agricole lost 857m euros ($1.3bn, £657m) in the fourth quarter, after Calyon took a 3.3bn-euro charge on losses related to the credit crisis.

That charge is worse than Credit Agricole’s forecast in December of a 2.5bn-euro loss.

The bank also dismissed rumours that it might bid for Societe Generale.

2008 Predictions

Happy New Year! Bonne Année!

The New Year always brings a rash of predictions for the 12 months ahead. Here are a few lighthearted ideas about what 2008 will bring in our world of European Recruitment for the banking and high-tech sectors, and also in the wider, weirder world:

• With the price of oil continuing to rise even after hitting the magical $100 dollar mark, company cars and fuel cards become a thing of the past as high tech firms begin to offer company unicycles instead. This is fine at HQ in California and actually increases productivity, but this is matched by dismay in the Nordics where the idea of unicycling to work through 2 metres of snow is not widely appreciated.
• The Banking sector continues to mask the true extent of the sub-prime lending fiasco by flooding the market with equity and funding several high profile M+A rounds….. the public is satisfied that the global economy is strong and consumer confidence increases. That is until the memoires of the ex Merrill Lynch boss are published in june entitled ‘you bunch of fools – how we let banks rule the world badly’.
• Hiring at Google continues apace and a new initiative is launched whereby using their search technology they can pinpoint geniuses (geniuii??) actually in the womb. A six month foetus provisionally named Jean-Lucien becomes head of R+D in April.
• The search for Credit Risk analysts in UK retail banking becomes so competitive that new graduates are offered £40k.
• The Private Banking world decides that Switzerland and Luxembourg are not private enough for their clients and the entire industry decamps to a remote iceberg off the coast of Antarctica. With the summer seas warming up around April, many analysts and money managers slip off and drown in June-July. Frustrated by the dwindling talent pool, UBS begin training penguins as client managers.
• Monaco declares war on France as Nicolas Sarkozy insults the principality by going ‘on the pull’ there in September after his acrimonious split from yet another supermodel. His lewd comments at a photo of the then Grace Kelly infuriate the Monegasques and lead to a diplomatic crisis and ultimately war.
• Monaco wins and abolishes tax on income in France.
• Bloomberg enters the race for the US presidency.
• The US election leads to either a democrat or a republican in the White House (a bold prediction)….. nothing really changes.
• Capital2 Solutions continues to grow and develop as a company…….

Have a very happy and prosperous 2008, we wil revisit these predictions at the end of the year to see how close we get. In the meantime our website is now LIVE! So visit us at www.capital2solutions.com

Macro News

SUB-PRIME LOSSES SO FAR

UBS: $13.5bn

Citigroup: $11bn

Merrill Lynch: $8bn

Morgan Stanley $3.7bn

HSBC: $3.4bn

Bear Stearns: $3.2bn

Deutsche Bank: $3.2bn

Bank of America: $3bn

Barclays: $2.6bn

Royal Bank of Scotland: $2.6bn

BNP Paribas: $2.1bn

Freddie Mac: $2bn

Credit Suisse: $1bn

Wachovia: $1.1bn

IKB: $1bn

Source: Company reports

Banking Woes set to continue??

The last 7 days has seen a spate of high profile banks post significantly low profits and high losses on the back of the US Subprime market collapse. Merrill Lynch and Citi have binned CEOs and Capital2 believes more will follow.

The extent of the impact on the european market is far from clear – without a doubt the big european banks are exposed due to the complex nature of the investment market and 2008 should be a rough year. We don’t believe the banks will collapse due to the massive impact this will have on the wider economy (more likely central banks wil prop them up) but nevertheless the risks / problems associated with lending to the sub-prime market have really come home to roost! If you’re in banking, expect a significantly lower bonus than usual this year.

How this will affect the recruitment market is again not too clear, we would expect some cautiousness but that hiring will continue, particularly in risk analytics as the need to really mitigate lending will be paramount.

For more information contact one of the Capital2 solutions team via www.capital2solutions.com

The Launch of Capital2 Solution’s Blog… Welcome!

Capital2 Solutions is a specialist recruitment organisation covering the high tech and Banking Technology markets. With offices in the UK and France, Capital2 Solutions covers the European market and partners with market leading software, IT services and Banking firms.

Check out our website www.capital2solutions.com and feel free to contact us at info@capital2solutions.com with any questions. This blog will be updated regularly and will be a window to the world of senior recruitment and an ongoing way for us to communicate our progress to the world.

We’re also present on LinkedIn, Viadeo and Xing so feel free to connect.