This time of year is normally when investment banks' revolving doors start to spin as bankers deposit their bonus cheques and the poaching season begins. But not this year. Large investment banks, stunned by the market turmoil and the lack of activity, are busy trying to work out how many people to fire, not hire.

Meanwhile, seasoned bankers, having watched the value of their share-based bonuses fall to new lows, are contemplating a change of career. One trend since the turn of the year has been the number of seasoned bankers who have decided to jump over the fence into the worlds of private equity and hedge funds.

Olivier Sarkozy, co-head of UBS (NYSE: UBS - News) 's financial institutions group, became the most high-profile defector when he left for Carlyle, the private equity group. Mr Sarkozy, a seasoned financial institutions banker who also happens to be the French president's half-brother, will run a team at Carlyle focusing on investments in the financial services sector - an area that has traditionally been difficult for private equity groups to penetrate. He replaces Edward "Ned" Kelly, a former JPMorgan executive, who has returned to banking at Citigroup (NYSE: C - News) .

John Cryan, Mr Sarkozy's co-head at UBS, will take sole charge of the financial institutions group. Another banker trying something different is Lou Friedman, a veteran dealmaker who was most recently chairman of the mergers and acquisitions department at Bear Stearns. Mr Friedman is joining Peter Schoenfeld Asset Management, the hedge fund, where he will help to raise a fund making longer-dated investments.

Private equity groups, sitting on large amounts of capital, continue to recruit. Richard Nanula, former chief financial officer of Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN - News) , recently joined Colony Capital, a firm specialising in real estate investments.

The number of investment bankers moving between institutions has been thin on the ground in recent months. The most high-profile defection was that of Jerker Johansson, a long-serving Morgan Stanley (AMEX: MWD - News) banker, who left to join UBS as chief executive of its troubled investment banking division. Morgan Stanley is also losing Michael Zaoui, the dealmaker and chairman of its European M&A department, who recently announced he is retiring. A few weeks afterwards, Tony Burgess, co-head of global M&A at Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB - News) , announced he was leaving the bank to return to his native Australia.

Morgan Stanley redressed the balance by hiring Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff, as a senior managing director. The bank also moved Scott Matlock, currently global head of media and communications M&A, from London to Hong Kong, to be chairman of mergers and acquisitions in Asia. Jean Abergel and Dexter Goei will become co-heads of media and communications in Europe.

Elsewhere Anthony Fry, an experienced media investment banker who had previously worked at Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH - News) and Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS - News) , is joining the London office of Evercore, the investment banking boutique.

Gleacher Shacklock, the rival boutique, announced that it had appointed Sir Derek Higgs as chairman. Sir Derek spent 24 years at SG Warburg, the merchant bank, before it was absorbed by UBS. He is currently also chairman of Alliance & Leicester, the UK bank, and Bramdean Asset Management.

The other notable trend in investment banking is the number of senior bankers who are moving east, attracted by the relatively buoyant markets in the Middle East and Asia.

This phenomenon has been described as the last resort of the banker with uncertain job prospects - summarised by the catch-phrase: "It's Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai or good-bye." But this quip ignores the fact that some serious forces are relocating.

The most recent example was Lehman Brother's decision to move Makram Azar, an experienced media banker, to Dubai to lead the investment bank's coverage of Sovereign Wealth Funds.

The spread of SWFs and their wide range of investment approaches, has made some banks reluctant to try to co-ordinate coverage of all these funds. But Lehman's move is a recognition of their growing power of SWFs. Mr Azar is unlikely to be the last appointment in this area.

Lehman also appointed Richard Bonaventura and Bradley Whitman as global co-heads for its financial institutions merger practice.

Meanwhile Standard Chartered hired Sean Wallace from Darby Overseas Investments, the private equity arm of Franklin Templeton, to be group head of Corporate Finance. He replaces Vis Shankar, who remains group head of origination and client coverage, and chairman of principal finance and private banking.

The emerging markets bank also hired Charles Alexander from Lehman Brothers to be regional head of origination and client coverage in northeast Asia.

Following the collapse of Bear Stearns, Citigroup snapped up Thomas Flexner, the Wall Street bank's real estate chief, to be its global head of real estate. Mr Flexner will oversee the banks' commercial real estate operations across investment banking, commercial finance and alternative investments.

Moelis & Company, the investment banking boutique run by former UBS banker Ken Moelis, hired Justin Mirro as managing director. Mr Mirro, who will lead the firm's automotive industry coverage, joins from Jeffries & Company, and previously worked at ABN AMRO, Salomon Smith Barney, and Schroder Wertheim.