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Big themes of 2013: (9) Memo from banks to shareholders: mind your own business
The woeful levels of transparency across the investment banking industry are undermining its relations with regulators and shareholders (my column from August) If transparency is the currency of trust,...
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Big themes of 2013: (10) When will investors lose patience with investment...
The road to recovery is paved with broken promises, volatile performance – and extraordinarily patient shareholders. My column from November. “Beware the fury of a patient man”, wrote the 17th-century...
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The 10 big themes from last year that will continue to dominate 2014
As the investment banking industry heads nervously into 2014, here is a quick guide to 10 of the big issues that dominated the industry last year – and which will continue to define its success (or...
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Too early to call the winners and losers in investment banking
For the first time in years investment banks are adopting different strategies and business models – my latest column for Financial News. A few years ago a senior investment banker was on holiday on a...
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What investment banks pay their most senior staff and how it is changing
A few days before the start of the annual season of bonus baiting, here is a quick look at one of the few ‘known knowns’ in the debate over pay: what investment banks pay their senior staff in the UK....
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Exactly how global are global investment banks?
Behind their apparent decline, European banks are punching above their weight outside of their home markets. World series: how well does it travel? It’s funny how American teams always seem to win the...
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Big themes of 2013: (5) Where has all the growth gone for investment banks?
As investment banks head nervously into 2014, revenues are flatlining with no sign of improvement anytime soon. My column for Financial News (from August) The thing about growth is that, like...
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Big themes of 2013: (6) Investment banks and their giant game of Jenga
Investment banks are struggling to work out how the different parts of their business fit together and how profitable they are. It could all come crashing down. My column for Financial News (from March...
View ArticleBig themes of 2013: (7) Is there a third way to measure bank capital?
The debate over bank capital requirements could get lost in its own complexity. Here’s a simple suggestion to clarify matter (in my column from July). When chief executives of banks start lining up to...
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Investment banks and the law of unintended consequences
Not all of the ‘unintended consequences’ from the reform of financial regulation are as unintended, as consequential or as negative as you might think. My latest column for Financial News: There are a...
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Banks shoot themselves in the foot (again) over bonuses
The banks’ reaction to the bonus cap shows that it may take longer than expected for them to regain the trust they have lost, because they seem not to appreciate why they lost it in the first place. My...
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Too big to fail and Pascal’s Wager
The only way to tell whether the problem has been solved would be to allow – or even encourage – a big bank to fail. My column for Financial News. Simples: how a European bank would be resolved over a...
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Saving the financial markets from themselves
The industry has undermined itself by failing to practice the gospel of free market capitalism that it preaches. My latest (and last column) for Financial News. You don’t have to be a rampant...
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Barclays and the great restructuring that wasn’t (quite)
The bank’s retreat from investment banking is not quite what it seems. Looks can be deceiving. Antony Jenkins, the quietly-spoken chief executive of Barclays, may not look like much of a bruiser, but...
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Making the positive case for capital markets
This article is effectively a manifesto for the new think tank I have set up called New Financial. It’s all about making the positive case for capital markets – but also making the case for better...
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