Watch out for the reverse brain drain

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Watch out for the reverse brain drain

The west should beware - it is about to be invaded by hordes from the east. They are not benefit-seeking immigrants but rather bargain-hunting entrepreneurs. Soon they might even be buying your bank. And in Turkey, local-born bankers with western skills are determined to drag their country into the modern capital markets era. Julian Evans profiles some of the leading eastern European entrepreneurs who are taking regional finance to a global level and Metin Munir looks at the pioneers seeking to pull Turkish banking out of stagnation.

THE WEST IS full of misconceptions about central and eastern Europe. The first, and most common, is that eastern Europeans cannot wait to get out of their native countries to find work or benefits abroad. For financial professionals at least, this is untrue.

In fact, some of the brightest young entrepreneurs in the region, have moved back to their home countries after successful careers or educations abroad. Examples profiled here include: Alisher Djumanov of Carthill Capital in Uzbekistan; Askar Elemesov, deputy governor of the Kazakh central bank; and Adam Farkas, CEO of CIB. The brain drain is being reversed, as bankers and businessmen look to use the skills they have acquired abroad to build their own domestic businesses and help the local economies.

Secondly, the west often thinks that all the M&A activity between east and west is one way ? US and western European companies buying bargain-priced companies in the east. That's wrong too. Of course, many CEE banks have been bought, but several, such as Parex in Latvia or OTP in Hungary, have stayed independent, and are now making acquisitions abroad. OTP famously beat Erste Bank in the bidding battle for Bulgarian bank DSK last year, and Parex recently bought a bank in Switzerland.

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