Among the Bankers by Joris Luyendijk

Author:Joris Luyendijk [Luyendijk, Joris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61219-592-6
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2016-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

8

And Now for Some Good News?

While doing research there are sometimes points at which lines of investigation suddenly coalesce into an insight. One such moment occurred during a very long conversation with a banker who had worked at two prestigious investment banks around the time of the crash, on trading floors that built and sold collateralised debt obligations (CDOs)—the kind of products that blew up in 2008.

The CDO banker was in his forties, gentle and self-deprecating, describing himself with a note of pride as a ‘university drop-out who ended up in banking by luck and found out that I really enjoy it and I am quite good at it. I’d do it for far less, too.’

Born and raised on the continent, he had worked there for a while in private banking, investing and managing rich people’s money. Around the turn of the millennium, a megabank had brought him over to London to sell financial products to these well-to-do clients.

At his suggestion we met in the hotel where 15 years earlier his bank had put him up as they completed his recruitment process. He had never been back and looked around almost with nostalgia. What would he tell his younger self? ‘I don’t know … enjoy it?’

He pointed to the luxury surrounding us. ‘Before you sign on, investment banks treat you like a star. Then your job starts and you’re one of many.’ He vividly remembered the first time he got onto the trading floor. It was a world away from the ‘client-facing’ side of investment banks where it is all ‘expensive suits, excellent catering, antiques on the walls.’ On trading floors, hundreds and hundreds of people sit in front of screens. ‘Factories. You’ve got a computer, phone, and Bloomberg Terminal with financial data and that’s it.’ He realised: this is the heart of the machine.

His bank had an in-house dentist, a doctor, a dry-cleaning service, a travel agent, restaurants, and fitness facilities—everything to make you as productive and focused on making money as possible. His trading floor had a food trolley so there was no need to leave your desk when you got hungry. There was even a guy going around the trading floor polishing your shoes for a few pounds.

The CDO banker stirred his tea, and broke the short silence with a joke: ‘Where does an 800-pound gorilla sit? Wherever he wants to. A newcomer is the opposite of an 800-pound gorilla. You have to fight your way in. Nobody has time. Nobody cares who you are. But you have been brought in with a budget. This is the money you have to make for the bank or out you go.’

His bank would sometimes hire two people for the same role and see who survived. He had been promised a ‘client segment’ all to himself, only to discover on his first day that, actually, several others already worked on that area of the market. ‘Basically I was not allowed to call anyone in that segment.’ Even worse: the manager

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.