One investment banker in Paris says not a week goes by these days without a call from a headhunter pitching him a job. Another was given an unexpected raise in June after an annual bump just a few months earlier.
US financial firms that for decades used London as a gateway to Europe’s single market are opening offices or bolstering existing operations on the continent to keep their access to the bloc. By the end of this year, Paris will have added 3,000 finance jobs thanks to Brexit, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said in June. Many think that’s just the beginning.
And days when junior bankers in France were paid less than their UK counterparts may soon become history. A Paris-based entry-level M&A analyst can now command a base salary of between €60,000 and €70,000, fast catching up with London, headhunters said. A manager at a French bank grumbled that American banks are overpaying bankers and skewing the market.
“With only one available spot for seven applicants, the demand is very pressing,” said Bernard Manuel, chairman of Paris-based bilingual school Ecole Jeannine Manuel - which counts US secretary ofstate Antony Blinken among alumni. “Now that Brexit is finalised, financial institutions have warned us that they intend to pursue their staff-relocation plans to Paris.”
Goldman Sachs is starting a new Paris-based trading pool this year near the Arc de Triomphe. Morgan Stanley, housed in a palatial private residence built in 1874, lured Ana Cendoya-Delcroix and Valerie Perez away from Deutsche Bank and recently promoted Emmanuel Goldstein to head its Paris office. Hedge funds and boutique investment banks have also joined the fray. Citadel, which opened an office in the city last year, has hired professionals from HSBC , Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. Others, like Qube Research & Technologies, are also recruiting, creating shortages of quantitative analysts and traders.