Rather than hiring brand new staff, expect banks to spend more time reassigning the ones they’ve already got.

This, at least, is the verdict of Australia’s biggest M&A hitters. Anthony Sweetman, head of M&A at UBS, which last year ranked first in Thomson Financial’s league of M&A deals, says a “huge” hiring drive for M&A isn’t on the cards in 2008.

Instead, Sweetman predicts banks will shift staff into hot areas: “Banks will move people internally into busier sectors, say, resources, rather than necessarily hiring for the [new] positions.”

Dealmaking in the natural resources sector has been hiked by BHP Billiton’s £75bn bid for Rio Tinto, and is likely to stay strong as the sector’s giants swallow its many minnows.

Sweetman says sales forced by debt should help sustain Australian M&A activity more broadly in 2008: ‘’We won’t see as many $2bn-plus private equity transactions,’’ he says, “but across the board, M&A levels should still be reasonable this year.”

Not everyone agrees that 2008 will be the year of the internal transfer, however. Jules Orpen at headhunter Heidrich & Struggles says M&A hiring is ”fairly robust. We are still hiring right across the M&A spectrum, from analysts, through associates to managing directors.”