Turkish IBankers

I was born in Turkey and lived half my life there and the rest in America, and currently attend a college in NY.

While I plan on spending at least the next 5 years in America, I would like to meet Turkish professionals to discuss career opportunities in Turkey (pro vs cons, compensation, corporate structure, difficulty in getting a job, etc). I've searched through my schools mentor system for people who were either born there or graduated from/worked at a Turkish institution but I couldn't find any one.

I would appreciate it if any of you would share information on the structure of finance jobs in Turkey, or suggest ways that I may find Turkish IBankers. The only thing that I have thought of is asking the people in IBanking I know right now if they know any one...any other tips?

Thank you

 

If your long term goal is moving back to Istanbul then perhaps London would be a better staging post than NY? There is a decent, not massive admittedly, amount of turkish ibankers in London and jobs come up sometimes for Turkish speakers in the CEEMEA groups.

 

Thank you for the input. I thought about London as well, but I've lived in America about 11 years, 6 in New York City, so I am fairly accustomed to life here and don't think I would like to work in London in the near future.

I have thought of various paths to reach my long term goals, and moving to Turkey after working here for 5 years (+MBA) is one of them. I'm not sure if I want to pursue it yet, as I now very little about careers in Turkey. I'm planning on interning during my winter break at an IBank in Istanbul (I've already talked with many banks and have gathered some specifics).

IBanks in Istanbul: Societe Generale HSBC Citigroup Deutsche Bank UBS (but they said they are very small) Credit Suisse JP Morgan Merrill Lynch announced the opening of their new office in February 07. Lehman Brothers is opening up an office this year.

As far as I gather, Citi has the biggest presence, as they have been there since '75. Let's see what happens. I'll try to contact people in the CEEMA groups. Thanks for the pointer.

 

Yeah but I think Citi may just be big mainly in commercial banking there. There was a guy called Barlos balabaner, was a big shot in citi for many years in turkey, was #2 man in that region. Not sure if he is still there but worth looking. He was a western educated turk who had worked abroad a lot. Soc Gen and HSBC also commercial focused, HSBC had lots of foreigners in it before it was bombed. I think DB and CS are generally have the best coverage in the whole C&EE region.

 
Oconnor:
Yeah but I think Citi may just be big mainly in commercial banking there. There was a guy called Barlos balabaner, was a big shot in citi for many years in turkey, was #2 man in that region. Not sure if he is still there but worth looking. He was a western educated turk who had worked abroad a lot. Soc Gen and HSBC also commercial focused, HSBC had lots of foreigners in it before it was bombed. I think DB and CS are generally have the best coverage in the whole C&EE region.

Merhaba.

That's not true. Citi is the leading ibank in Turkey. They have the best relationships and have done virtually all the landmark deals. Having said that, they are wak in Turkish IPOs so if you want equity, try the likes of bank Austria and Raiffeisen believe it or not, who are doing deals just because they charge close to nothing (ie they buy business).

Again, i disagree on DB. DB has commercial bankign coverage in the region, but they are only started covering CEE / Turkey properly a year ago and still have a long way to go. They are a debt house and so they will remain for some time in this part of the world.

Credit Suisse is very strong in CEE but not so in Turkey.

Goldman is building a presence in turkey and has a lot of appetitie for that market - they're even looking to hire Turks on their prop desk because of the dealflow coming from Istanbul.

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Best Response

Well maybe with Citi you are right. My knowledge of that is a bit outdated and was based on what that guy I mentioned from citi told me. As for DB IB being weak in CEE, that is definately wrong since they are the leader in Russia and big in the rest of the CIS, which make up a massive amount of deal flow in CEE seeing as apart from Poland there isn't that much big stuff going on regularly. Raiffaisen is interesting, they must have had their heads screwed on because they went from being an Austrian bank to a major player in the whole region, but then again that is mainly commercial banking and only a very few small IB deals. I heard Barclays Capital is focusing on Turkey quite a lot, as well as the central asian countries. I didn't know about Goldman, seems interesting seeing as they have been a bit slow in the whole region. Knowing them they will hire the son of some deputy PMs or something in order to get connections

 

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