Job seekers with international transaction experience take note: Ray Liguori, vice president of M&A at Wal-Mart International, says he's expanding his team. We tell you this as part of our
ongoing focus on the
employment scene for transaction professionals, including
laid-off investment bankers -- and as a reminder that all the news isn't bad these days.
Liguori, a one-time investment banker himself who joined Wal-Mart last year from AT&T Inc., spoke on an Ernst & Young Thought Center live Webcast earlier Wednesday. The discussion -- titled "What's keeping corporate development officers up at night?" -- will be
archived soon. His co-panelists were Thomas Brown of Bank of America Securities, and John Vester and Michael Rogers of E&Y.
Wal-Mart, which is performing well in the current sluggish economy, has a robust deal pipeline, Liguori reports. But that's not to say there's no competition out there for deals. In Latin America, he says, the company is coming up against Chilean retailers seeking to expand regionally.
The fact that dealmakers with international expertise are in demand even amidst Wall Street layoffs and an M&A slowdown makes some sense. A need to expand in new geographies is driving a lot of the strategic dealmaking that now dominates the market. Most corporate development teams we talk to say they're doing cross-border deals.
No doubt there are other pockets of strong demand for dealmakers as well. Tuesday we noted that, judging from the job site Indeed, there are a number of help-wanted signs posted in parts of the healthcare world. Here's another: Royal Philips Electronics is looking for a
senior director in business development, to be located in Andover, Mass., and work with the company's medical technology units. -
Kenneth Klee
Join Corporate Dealmaker's LinkedIn forum
Juergen Lasowski
And the winners are...
