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New equity capital markets talent and Bernstein joint venture have helped Société Générale win eye-catching mandates. Next, it will expand sector teams
Italian investment bank has retained its focus since its takeover by Banca Monte dei Paschi. Now with two suitors for MPS, it is set for more upheaval
Years of underperformance are behind it and the bank has launched a new growth plan
The Italian bank’s head of advisory and financial solutions wants AI to support a new operating model based on being able to work faster than any of its rivals
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Sovereign wealth funds may have provided crucial rescue financing to investment banks, but they are proving less attractive as a source of revenues. And with some reining in their firepower, banks may soon discover that they are not the saviours they were initially thought to be, says David Rothnie.
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The star culture at many investment banks will lead to arbitrary and indiscriminate job cuts among the ranks of associates as cutbacks are made. That might help banks to meet numerical redundancy targets in the short term but will leave banks scrambling to fill managing director positions in a few years’ time — once again destroying shareholder value, argues David Rothnie.
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Thousands of investment-banking job losses are likely following the integration of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. As John Thain’s transition teams get to work, they will have to avoid the mistakes made by Merrill in the past — firing too many staff in the downturn, then hiring too many “mediocre” bankers during the following boom. Merrill’s global financial institutions group, shaped by Greg Fleming and Andrea Orcel, is the right template for Thain to use across the rest of the merged investment bank.
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Do you want to work for a firm that is free to pay you on the basis of the business you generate and not on the dictat of government bureaucrats? A firm that has not been hamstrung by a broken business model? A firm whose clients respect the independence of your advice? And a firm small enough not to worry about anxious regulators crawling over your business? Boutique investment banking is back, says David Rothnie, though like the rest of the industry, it too faces tough challenges.
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When ABN Amro’s shareholders voted in favour of the RBS consortium’s takeover bid last October, one adviser to the Dutch bank dubbed it the "AOL Time Warner" of the financial services sector, in reference to the ill-timed $164bn media merger struck at the height of the dotcom boom in 2000.
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The last weeks’ negotiations between the UK banks and their government have thrown up a tangle of conflicts of firms and personnel, allowing the banks involved plenty of opportunity to gripe and grumble that others have had fairer treatment, says David Rothnie.