Robert here. Apologies for no new post last week, as Robert and I have been extremely busy and also traveling quite a bit. Our Asia team as a whole, including Yuliya Vinokurova, Robert and me, are representing more qualified US biglaw attorney candidates for Asia than at any other time prior. While some of these even highly qualified candidates will be on a longer term job search involuntarily (due to the market), and others are contacting us with plans to move to Asia in a year or two (over half of our Asia placements have been of US associates that contacted us a year or more before starting a job search), we are seeing a surge in active interviews and hiring in Asia, especially Hong Kong / China, for our most qualified candidates.
Things continue to pick up dramatically in the China economy, as a successful stimilus and increased lending are helping the stock indexes in HK / China surge. The Shanghai Index has now doubled its global recession low in November ’08. The Shanghai Index is the world’s best performing stock market, having gained 89% this year thus far. Earlier this month, China briefly overtook Japan as the world’s second largest stock market by value and is likely to soon overtake Japan indefinitely. Atlhough there will most likely be a correction in the market later this year, with stocks in China being too expenseive, on average trading at 37 times earnings, it is clear that China’s domestic economy is quite strong, on the rebound, and growing rapidly.
I say the domestic economy because there is a perception out there that China’s economy is heavily reliant on exports to the west, but in reality it is becoming more and more of a consumer driven economy. For example, consumers in China now buy more new cars and gold than any other country in the world and not so long ago it would have been unthinkable that the US and India would not be those leaders, repsectively, indefinitely. Some countries, such as Australia for example, have become quite reliant on exports to China rather than vice versa. While of course, the China economy benefits greatly from the US and other Western markets importing goods from China, and there is of course a very substantial manufacturing industry in China that relies on demand from west, there has been some decoupling of China’s economy from the US economy. The global downturn has made this reality more clear and has surprised many economic experts that felt certain that China’s economy would suffer a major and long-term blow from the serious recession in western markets.
A minority view is that the increased lending is creating the same sort of dissastrous bubble in China’s economy that happened in US markets, but in my opinion, that is just an assumption that events of the recent past will repeat itself in another part of the world where the facts are not the same, where the lending is not tied to the same toxic assets as was the case in West. There is very likely a small bubble in stock market prices, according to the majority view, and maybe even real estate, but not in the overall economy in China. A healthy correction in the equity market in China is not going to cause any serious problems and will not keep China’s economy from continuing to surge on.
What does China’s surging economy mean for lateral hiring of US attorneys in China specifically and Asia in general? It is of course helpful on that front in HK / China, but patience is still needed re all Asia job searches, including HK / China. US practices, including some that are slammed and understaffed just recently, are being cautious in hiring and some will remain on hiring freeze (a directive from their US home offices) in 2nd half ’09. Hiring of US associates has picked up a lot in HK / China from what was a dead period during the first 5 months this year, but it is still not near the level of even mid ’08, when the Asia markets started to decline. We expect things to continue to pick up in US associate lateral hiring in Asia, mainly in HK / China, during the 2nd half of ’09. Many US firms and US practices of British firms have considerable expansion plans on the drawing board for Asia and as the US economy rebounds eventually, there will be more and more investment and expansion in Asia by US firms. In the mean time, as some US practices become understaffed in Asia, especially in HK / China, there will be more and more hiring (or in some cases, more transfers and secondments within firms).
Here are some of our more pressing US attorney needs in Asia:
*PE / M&A – 3 to 5 years – Shanghai (Mandarin not required, but commitment to SHG is)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market.
*corporate in-house (international chemicals and materials company) – 15+ years of experience – Hong Kong
-new hire likely to come from HK / China, will be most senior legal officer of company in Asia Pacific region
*PE / M&A – partner level – Hong Kong
-new hire likely to come from Asia market
*fund formation – partner level – Hong Kong
-new hire likely to come from Hong Kong or NYC
*M&A – class of ’08 (or ’09 that has been deferred) – Tokyo – native Japanese required
-new hire likely to come from US markets
*M&A – 4+ years – Tokyo – Japanese required
-new hire likely to come from NYC or Tokyo market
*Cap Markets – 5 to 10 years – Hong Kong (native Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from HK / China or NYC market
*Cap markets / M&A – 1 to 3 years – Hong Kong (Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from HK / China or NYC market
*M&A – 4 to 7 years – Hong Kong (native Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC or HK
*M&A – 1 to 7 years – HK qualification required
-new hire likely to come from HK market
*Finance – 2 to 5 years – Hong Kong (native Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market.
*PE / M&A – 2 to 5 years – Beijing (Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market
*Project Finance – 2 to 5 years – Tokyo (Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market
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