Top investment bank limits hiring as pay for star metals traders reach $3 million a year
UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, is slowing down its commodities hiring expansion after a decade-long bull market drove up pay and created a scarcity of talent. UBS originally wanted to double its commodities staff. Salaries and bonuses for the most-profitable metals traders rose 20% to $2 million to $3 million last year, according to Commodity Search Partners.
The Standard & Poor’s GSCI index of 24 raw materials rose fourfold since the end of 2001 and the surge drove commodity investments to a record $451bn in April this year, about 50% more than a year earlier. A report by researcher Coalition showed a group of 10 large banks increase their commodities revenues by 55% in the first quarter.