There’s no place like home

Australian expatriate financial planners and funds management professionals are returning home in record numbers from the soft investment markets of the UK and the US.

The influx is also being partly driven by a marketing push by financial services firms to lure them back, according to three financial services recruitment specialists in Australia.

They said the decision to come home is being made easier by acute skills shortages in Australia and a corresponding growth in remuneration offers, driven directly by the skills shortage and indirectly by the high local dollar.

Their comments are supported by a Link Recruitment survey, which found 34,000 Australian nationals returned from the UK to Australia in the past 12 months — the highest influx ever recorded.

Link Recruitment general manager of global services Jason Cartwright said Link had handled a 14 per cent year on year increase in the number of returning financial services expatriates, with a “big flow” of funds management professionals.

Melbourne-based Cartwright attributed the increase to a “definite slowdown in the financial services sector overseas, both in permanent recruitment and temporary and contract work”.

“Often returning expatriates are making a pre-emptive strike against the soft market conditions overseas, trying to get out before they are tapped on the shoulder,” Cartwright said.

“We haven’t actually seen evidence of returning expatriates having lost their jobs, but everyone is acutely aware of the large scale layoffs and redundancies occurring in these markets.”

Derwent Executive principal, funds management, Lee Humphrey said: “A lot of the returning funds management expatriates have structured credit experience — evidence of the fallout from the ongoing credit crisis.”

Humphrey said the firm is also experiencing “a big increase in enquiries from expatriate hedge funds looking to either start up funds in Australia or for opportunities in the funds management sector here”.

There is also a strong demand for expatriates with quantitative analytical skills across all asset classes.

Hays Banking senior regional director Jane McNeill said more expatriate financial advisers are also returning, although not at the same rate as fund managers. McNeill said the adviser inflows are driven in part by Australian employers taking a more favourable attitude towards internationally trained advisers of late.

“Four or five years ago employers were not keen on taking on advisers who had either trained or qualified overseas, but the dire skills shortage here is rapidly changing that attitude.”

McNeill said two financial planning institutions in partnership with Hays had run employment campaigns in the UK last year specifically targeting expatriate planners.