We have just closed our first full three months of trading and are looking forward to the next quarter. Our first quarter has been busy, mostly generating new business opportunities, completing some hires and actively networking in the areas where we have won mandates. We have had many meetings with corporations explaining our search approach. We have also been cold calling and making ourselves known to new firms.
We see optimistic hiring talk in our small area of the financial markets. (We work with data, research, news, software, technology companies who sell their products to buy-side and sell-side firms). However, we cannot pin-point where that optimism is coming from, given there are no strong economic figures indicating we have recovered from events pre- and post-Lehman. We have observed some firms have had headcount signed off. In some cases this was headcount that was originally requested at the start of this year but hiring was put on hold due to market conditions. Other firms are completing cost cutting and some have indicated they'll have new budgets in January. In addition, we have been speaking with 2 US firms, who are expanding in European. Perhaps the favourable exchange rate is influencing some of these decisions.
Our next quarter will see us working across fixed income valuations, investor relations, fund research, macro research, commodities research/data and equity market data. We will be expanding our network in these areas as we solicit recommendations for top performers.
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