Investment banker? I think you mean 'content creator'

Investment banking's favourite new buzzword — 'content' — is inescapable these days. But when did 'content' become a thing in investment banking and what does it mean?

In a wide-ranging interview with GlobalCapital editor Ralph Sinclair, Santander's head of debt capital markets and syndicated lending, Conor Hennebry, said the bank was looking to grow its "content-driven" business. "It's our ideas and our people, expertise and content that is making the biggest difference with clients in 2022," he said.

He's not the only one. In a meeting with GC this week, the head of EMEA DCM at a rival firm in London also said that its recruitment strategy was focused on hiring people who would bolster the bank's ability to provide "content" to clients.

Presumably, they do not have in mind content creators as the general public might understand the term today. Heads of DCM are surely not instructing headhunters to bring in the world's most successful Instagram and TikTok influencers for interviews.

In a highly unscientific investigation, your correspondent trawled through the GlobalCapital archives to try to discover when the concept of 'content' first went viral in the capital markets. This survey suggests that the term is of surprisingly recent coinage — or perhaps the editors of GC have studiously excised the expression in a doomed attempt to prevent it from catching on.

The earliest instance of its use in these pages appears to be in a column published in 2016 about Andrea Orcel's strategy as chief executive of UBS.

"Since arriving in 2012 as chief executive of UBS Investment Bank, silver-haired Andrea Orcel has created the firm’s corporate client solutions (CCS) division in his own image, often speaking of the importance of recruiting bankers with 'grey hairs' — experienced hands who can provide the value-added content Orcel sees as critical to the success of UBS’s capital-light business model", wrote David Rothnie (emphasis added).

Whether or not it truly dates the emergence of the term, this example is highly instructive. It clearly links 'content' with a common aim of investment banking CEOs — to squeeze the maximum possible margin out of the smallest outlay of capital.

This is reinforced in our interview with Hennebry, where the Santander DCM chief contrasts 'content' on the one hand with balance sheet largesse on the other. "I'm a strong believer that balance sheet without content is empty," he said. "We have tried to do the right mix of the two."

So what does 'content' mean in practice? It seems to boil down to good old-fashioned know-how — ratings advisory, hybrid capital structuring, regulatory capital, ESG... that kind of thing.

In this era of obsession with 'capital light' investment banking, it therefore seems that bond bankers looking to further their careers would do well to fashion themselves into content creators. But don't worry — there is no need to add your TikTok greatest hits to your CV just yet.

On the subject of career progression, several banks have announced major promotions over the past week or so.

There was Michelle Girard in New York, who is taking over from Paul Stevelman as head of NatWest Markets Securities, and Virginie de Grivel Nigam in London, who has been elevated to head of UK and Ireland equity capital markets in London, replacing Barry Meyers, who is understood to be heading to a corporate job.

Meanwhile, those leaving one firm for another included Jermaine Jarrett, who left Crédit Agricole to become head of high yield and leveraged loans at NatWest Markets in London, and Yezdan Badrakhan, who fills the vacant role of head of esoteric ABS at MUFG in New York, having previously been an executive director at Morgan Stanley.

Coming to the end of an eventful career is Hernán Danery Alvarado, who isset to retire as chief financial officer at the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei) next month. He has been with the multilateral lender for the entirety of its history as a bond issuer, which began in 1996 with an offering in Taiwan.

And finally, those just starting of their careers might want to consider Citi's new move to make it a more attractive place to work by opening an office in Málaga, on the south coast of Spain.

The US firm is hoping that its so-called Junior Banking Analytics Group will lure in graduates that might otherwise not have considered a career in banking due to the lack of work-life balance.

It is latest in several initiatives that Citi has announced as it forges a separate path from its US investment banking peers. In contrast to their old school insistence on a return to pre-pandemic working practices, Citi seems to be setting itself up as a cuddlier alternative to the likes of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.

Will this translate into a competitive advantage in the red hot recruitment market? Time will tell.

Keep scrolling for all of the week's people and markets headlines from GlobalCapital.

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