Crain’s New York – Since last fall, executive recruiter Claude Schwab, partner at hedge fund hiring expert Heidrick & Struggles, has been fielding numerous calls from fund managers “exploring their options.” It was a new twist for the industry veteran, hearing from hedge fund executives interested in leaving their private investment perches for the trenches of big banks.
“We saw a reversal,” he says. “The winds became favorable toward the banks.”
That is, until late last month, when President Barack Obama announced plans to bar commercial banks from running the kind of in-house, or proprietary, trading operations that have produced outsize profits at Goldman Sachs and other banks. Thud. Mr. Schwab now calls this period the “Obama cloud,” as job candidates sit tight and try to figure out how new rules in Washington might change the business.
