The Business

Just Because It’s ibanking Doesn’t Mean It’s Always Error-Free

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Written by: Topics: The Business

It’s showtime. You’ve finished a presentation, printed a copy in colour and placed it, correctly stapled, on the Managing Director’s desk.

Enter the Managing Director (MD).

The MD calls you over. Pointing at the document before him he asks, “this is the final draft?”

Hesitatingly you reply. “Yes.”

The MD makes himself comfortable, throws one quick glance at you with a look which unequivocally says ‘you’d better have gone through this doc carefully at least 50 times before putting it before my royal ass’, and then begins going through the document. Having done this for over 15 years, it has become like bread and butter for him – errors, mistakes and typos practically jump out at him as would a Buddhist monk at a hedge fund conference.

Then the moment comes. You’re looking over the MD’s shoulder when, as he’s carefully perusing a slide, you notice that you’ve misspelled the name of the client in one of the paragraphs. Absolute catastrophe. This kind of mistake generally warrants outright humiliation in front of the whole team. You nearly faint. Without warning a drop of sweat descends down your forehead and then crashes onto your MD’s back leaving a momentary wet stain. He senses something and violently turns and looks up at you. You return his forceful stare with a puny smile which an onlooker may mistake for constipation. He quickly turns round again and resumes his critique. He is about to detect your error. It’s imminent. Meanwhile you’ve shortened your life by 2-3 days from the stress of being caught.

The MD cries out: “What the f@&k is this!”

The torture of the wait is over. He will unleash hell but at least you’ll be out of your misery. [READ MORE…]

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Labour Abuse Is Rampant in ibanking So Learn To Say No Or Else…

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Written by: Topics: The Business

Investment bankers drop out of the business daily and there are plenty of causes for this unfortunate phenomenon. Poor performance tops the list and, come on, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t. Every young banker knows what she or he signs up for before they start. If you don’t perform as you’re expected to you’ll be fired. Very fast.

Another cause of departures has to do with a nasty case of bad luck. If the bank is getting ready to lay off people you could get the short end of the stick. It happens. Investment banks lay off people without mercy. No exaggeration.

Then there are also self-led exits. Say the job becomes so damn overwhelming that you cannot hold up the weight of your responsibilities anymore and so you just give up. You throw in the towel and decide it’s time to get out. Who knows, maybe the real reason is that you want to spend more time with your friends and family; you can’t take any more crap from your boss; or simply because, as you build your 19,000th financial model, it dawns on you that you’ll remember the best years of your life having been spent with Mr. Excel. Whatever your reasons there’s a little trick that can make life a little bit easier at the bank, save you from getting a few additional grey hairs and help you reduce – but just a little – the labour abuse that’s an inevitable part of ibanking. It’s a two-letter word which conveys one of the most powerful human messages. An expression of refusal or denial whose mastery becomes a rite of passage for all successful ibankers who remain in the business and go on to attain great success, perhaps even one day grace the  cover of the Financial Times. That word is “No”.

1) The desire or need to abuse is the natural state of affairs in the jungle of ibanking

A jungle is a wild mass of vegetation but is also a place where animals struggle to survive. You must have thick skin to endure. The tiger doesn’t hesitate to devour a wild pig the moment the latter falls in view. It doesn’t think about little piggy having piggy desires and piggy ambitions and wearing piggy pijamas. It will simply rip the prey in half, walk away and then take a nap, thinking nothing of the slaughter which occurred moments earlier. Piggy was just a means to survival.

Similarly, in an investment bank many bankers won’t give a damn about you or how hard you slave away. You’re a means for them. Your very presence elicits, in them, a desire to give you work. And regardless of how awful, stressed or agitated you look they’ll pile on more work on your plate if they can and won’t think twice about it. I’m not saying they’re heartless bastards. It’s just the nature of the business and people are there to make money. They do what they have to. In fact, it’s very likely that the abuse being dished out was done just as badly to the guy who is doing it to you. And in time you’ll do it to the school of  fresh-faced goldfish that joins the firm.

2) The naturally weak will attract more predators for they are easy prey

Ruthless struggle is part of jungle life. And easy prey is, well let’s be honest, easy. If you’re a starved feline you chase the slow, helpless creature (i.e. meal).

In an ibank’s junior class there will always be a number of young grasshoppers eager to please all. Sadly, in their attempt to demonstrate eagerness, this demographic will be seen as willing and subservient servants. And surely they will be treated as such. They are generally incapable of refusing requests, which in a bank tend to come across more so as commands – remember, ibankers are assertive.

Therefore, when a junior ibanker is identified as a “yes” man or woman they will very likely be given a steady flow of work. More so than their more defensive peers. The “yes” people in time become quite miserable. [READ MORE…]

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Bonus: It’s Much More Than Just A Word

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Written by: Topics: The Business

More Than Just A Word

The word bonus can mean different things to different people. If you were to randomly stop someone in the street and ask them what the word means to them you’d probably get a response along the lines of the following:

“Hmmm…something extra that’s nice. Real nice.”

“An amount or sum given in addition to what I expected.”

“An additional prize, award or bit of cash. Expected or unexpected.”

Fair enough. That’s pretty much the textbook definition of a bonus. But we’re not interested in generic, blanket definitions. We’re talking finance here. More importantly, the investment banking side of finance. To an ibanker, therefore, those above-mentioned answers are dishearteningly superficial. They are the words of one who knows nothing about the great journey of the ibanker. Alas, living a world that very few understand is part of the ibanker’s burden in his quest for glory and riches.

The most powerful things are difficult to define

In my years in banking I’ve come to know myriad ibankers. Women and men from different countries of the world, emerging and developed alike. From children of European banking dynasties and Chinese real estate magnates to first-in-the-family-with-a-university-degree Americans, Indians and Norwegians with boundless ambition and energy. Thin, tall, fat, short, I saw them in all shades and colors. And despite their personal idiosyncrasies and individual backgrounds none could ever give you a straight answer if you asked them ‘what is a bonus’?

How could some of the sharpest minds on earth stall when asked a simple 4-worded question? Remember, they included former debate club leaders, chess masters, straight A students (since birth), mental calculators, standardized test aces and even members of rhetorical societies. It didn’t matter. The question would arrest them. The reason is only they, that special breed of financiers, feel the overwhelming surge of emotions from this highly charged word. They are alone in that respect. [READ MORE…]

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Those Magnificent Bankers And Their Dedication To Clients

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Written by: Topics: The Business

Open anytime, any day

Investment bankers make money and make a shitload of it. The economy may be soaring to dizzying heights, streets can be filled with blood or the country may find itself on the precipice of collapse. Just as well, the ibanker will keep printing money. Fear not for his or her fate my dear reader. The business is such that there will always be an angle to make money. In the worst of times it only means that some ibankers will be forced to walk the plank. Yet the bank, and the lucky, remaining bankers, will continue making money. Lots of it. But only after putting clients’ interest first. After all, it’s about the immense dedication to clients.

I can think of few better examples to address the phenomena of an ibank’s uncanny ability to make money through dedication to the client then my first advisory project at Paris Berkeley Capital.

The client was a large Qatari bank with an annoying problem. We were the doctor and our opening hours were as follows: anytime, any day, and no appointments necessary. We always made time for clients.

An opportunity knocks

It was a morning like any other. I was in the middle of preparing one of a handful of presentations imminently due when, all of a sudden, Mario, one of the Managing Directors in my team, walks up to me, taps me on the shoulder and asks me to follow him into a meeting. He didn’t have to ask, I brought along a notepad and pen. By now it was second nature. I was so used to being given a shitload of work at any moment that I even carried pen and paper to the toilets out of habit.

We take the elevator to the floor reserved for important client meetings. Mario knocks twice and opens the door. We enter the room and proceed with introductions. The CEO of the Qatari bank strikes me as a distinguished  gentleman. A bit of research carried out earlier revealed to me he was a close confidant of the Emir of Qatar and a very influential man in the Gulf. I’m glad to meet him.

The CEO’s countenance suggests to me that the nature of the meeting is of utmost importance so I am particularly attentive from the moment I take my seat… [READ MORE…]

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ibanker Syndrome: One Of Many Perils Of Investment Banking

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Written by: Topics: The Business

A covert operation tasked with a mission to increase bankers’ resilience to stress so they work harder and longer for the bank, the Comprehensive Banker Fitness (CBF) programme made startling discoveries about the race of pitchbook monkeys soon after its genesis.

Generously funded by banks, this clandestine division, which falls somewhere between the HR department and the executive committee, though one can only surmise, began to catalogue, study and analyse different conditions suffered by the foot soldiers of the business, analysts and associates. The one which intrigued them the most was what they named ‘ibanker syndrome’.

iBanker Syndrome

At some point or another nearly every member of the banker subspecies race will fall prey to it. Some survive and get on with life just fine, while others are permanently scarred.

You’d possibly mistake it for the Stockholm syndrome. The weak are repeatedly beaten and cursed by the strong and by some strange twist of neurological circuitry, in time the former begins to feel positively toward the latter. In banking, however, the beaten develop an even stronger attraction, some would call it love, for their superior. That is because the tremendous weight and intensity of these – very often unexpected – diatribes and lashes upon the junior bankers penetrate so deep in the psyche that a powerful bond emerges between master and slave.

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The ‘Stretch’: Giving Up Minutes of Freedom in Exchange for a Free Meal

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Pulling a Stretch

There’s a lot of truth to the notion that a meal tastes even better when it’s free. While working in the bank many a meals were on the house. Stay past 8pm and you were entitled to a dinner, compliments of the company. This was one of the many perks which, collectively, keep you chained to the job.

Given a bank’s enormous budget, it didn’t really matter how much you spent on dinner when you worked late at the office. After all, it was normal for many bankers to spend thousands on drinks in one go while entertaining clients in nightclubs, restaurants and lounges. So what was £30 or $50 for dinner? Nothing really.

When it came to those long nights, which, to be perfectly honest, was the case 95% of the time, no expenses were spared. We’d head out somewhere nearby, often a sushi restaurant, and would order more than enough food. It wasn’t about how much room you think you had in your stomach as it was what you felt like seeing in front of you as you sat down to eat. Like a rich Gulf Arab at Harrods you grabbed whatever you liked. ‘Just order it’, we’d tell one another if someone’s eyes stayed fixated on a particular menu item longer than a split second. If you were undecided between two mains, you ordered both. Plain and simple.

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The Special Bond Between A Banker and His Chair

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A banker's sacred chair

I can count on one hand the number of times I left the office before 5pm (New York time) the first six months at the bank. I was 5 hours ahead in London as well. Understandably, it was not unusual for me to have dinner away from home most nights. More often than not at my the desk whilst staring at one of a handful of computer screens.

But let’s get this straight: I didn’t have to eat at the desk on each of those nights. It wasn’t imperative for me to be there each and every moment. I was at liberty to sit and dine in a restaurant if I so desired. Yet most of those evenings I mysteriously felt drawn back to my chair. As if it called to me. Like the precious…

Sitting in the ergonomic comfort of my chair had become second nature. With its delicate support I helped European titans of business acquire peers, Arabian sheikhs realise multi-billion dollar constructions fantasies in the desert and Spanish banks raise capital with ease. The chair was born to ensure its master was comfortable during the course of his or her job at the bank. So when I would walk over to the local Italian restaurant in the evening to grab a bite, and the Italian girl with the nose ring and striking dark eyes asked if I would be dining in the establishment or order take away the answer was almost always the same. I yearned for my chair. Take away, please.

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Aladdin’s Lamp in The Mystical Land of Investment Banking

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A banker's cell phone is like a genie lamp

When you join an investment bank, part of the social contract you sign up to with the institution requires you to undergo a twisted form of house arrest. The bank will keep a very close eye on your movements and whereabouts going forward. Though you may continue to enjoy ‘freedom of movement’, the way you interpret that very notion will fundamentally change in time. The single most essential element in this affair is the handheld device you’re given shortly after you are bestowed a seat and computer. Generally referred to as a ‘mobile’ or ‘cell’, you’ll occasionally encounter alternate nicknames for it. You were given an ‘earring’, some people would joke. Others had their own name for it. The day it was thrust into my hands the benefactor called it a lamp.

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What Is An Investment Banker?

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In essence, an investment banker resembles a magician; his greatest trick is the disappearance and reappearance of money, an illusion he so aptly executes with the backing of nicely-designed and immaculate literature and an arsenal of free-flowing industry jargon intelligible mainly to people in his circle; the investment banker contrasts with the magician, however, in his finale; [READ MORE…]

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Investment Bankers and Samurais

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Written by: Topics: The Business

The year I joined the bank I befriended another new joiner named Takeshi, a Japanese student who sailed in from Harvard Business School. We had just completed a week-long session of intensive financial modelling training and rather than head home – it was 11:30pm – we decided to grab a few beers.

So exhausted were we from the week that by the time we knocked back our third Peroni both of us were borderline drunk. We cheerfully discussed a variety of topics on the mind of all new male bankers: bonuses, women, holidays, suits, watches, etc. This was an exciting time for us.

At one point the conversation went quiet and neither of us uttered a word for a good 30 seconds. One of Madonna’s songs was playing in the background and we found ourselves bobbing our heads to the beat. Takeshi looked my way and opened his mouth slightly, as if about to speak, but then hesitated, gave up and looked away. “What’s on your mind,” I inquired with a smile.  He looked me straight in the eye and without hesitation he said something I’ll never forget, “we are now Samurais.” I smiled and raised my glass. He followed suit and we drank to that.

A beer later we were both officially drunk and Takeshi began philosophising aloud. According to him, an investment banker lived by a code of honor. This was predicated on unquestioned obedience to one’s master, acceptance that work duties constitute part of the highest good and the practice of constant self-sacrifice.  ”The bank is my master.  No, my line manager is my true master.  Excel will be my Katana (Samurai sword).  And I will give up my social life for the next five years.”  He was not silly enough to touch on frugality and loyalty – we are bankers after all and will a) spend and b) go where we are paid the most.

A week later Takeshi went away to work in our Tokyo office and, because an investment banker’s job sucks like a leech and priorities are violently re-shuffled when you join, we lost touch.  It wasn’t until nearly half a year later that I witnessed first-hand, in the lobby of our building, an event which reminded me of Takeshi and that funny phrase of his. The trigger was a discussion between a recently fired analyst, Paulo, and a senior managing director in the Capital Markets team, Steve.

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