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    Greed Can Be Good: Why Investment Banking May Be Broken But Doesn't Need Fixing
    Greed Can Be Good: Why Investment Banking May Be Broken But Doesn't Need Fixing
    Greed Can Be Good: Why Investment Banking May Be Broken But Doesn't Need Fixing
    Ebook76 pages47 minutes

    Greed Can Be Good: Why Investment Banking May Be Broken But Doesn't Need Fixing

    By David Charters and Dave Hart

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    About this ebook

    A witty, satirical take on the financial crash and the future of the banking industry, written in the persona of ultimate antihero and rogue banker Dave Hart (protagonist of David Charters' cult novels, which include Trust Me, I'm a Banker)

    "As an investment banker I witnessed at close hand the most expensive financial crash in modern history. The result of decades of artificially inflated prices, a bonus driven-culture based on 'me now, and I want it all,' and torrents of cheap money that we thought would last forever. I was paid millions—in some years, tens of millions. But did it make me happy? Of course it did. I loved every minute of it. Money isn't guaranteed to buy you happiness, but it sure helps. We had a hell of a party, and the rest of the world had our hangover. But was it right? This book is an exploration of what we did and why we did it and most importantly where we go next. It is not a chest-beating polemic from a former banker on a guilt trip. I don't do guilt, and anyway I'm not guilty. Do we need a new code of ethics? A different approach to the way we do business? Or should we just repackage the old one and carry on? There are no definitive answers and clearly no easy ones for an industry used to getting its own way. All I can offer is the insight of an insider and my reflections for the future. Plus my assurance that whatever happens, bankers will still come out on top. We always do."  —Dave Hart

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElliott & Thompson
    Release dateOct 1, 2013
    ISBN9781908739759
    Greed Can Be Good: Why Investment Banking May Be Broken But Doesn't Need Fixing
    Author

    David Charters

    David Charters worked five years in the British Foreign Office, and later became managing director of Deutsche Bank's Equity Capital Markets team, where he oversaw the flotation of Amazon.com and France Telecom. He is the author of The Insiders and Trust Me, I'm a Banker.   He is also the cofounder of The Beacon Fellowship Charitable Trust. He is married, has six children, and lives in London.

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      Book preview

      Greed Can Be Good - David Charters

      2013

      INTRODUCTION

      Is that it? The credit crunch not exactly over, but at least sufficiently boring and familiar that we’ve all just moved on, with our ever-shorter attention spans, to the Next Big Thing?

      Quite possibly. And yet we should not allow ourselves to forget the lessons of the most expensive financial crash in modern history. The music nearly stopped for good. It cost the global economy trillions. It is no exaggeration to say that it changed the world. Generations to come will still be paying off the debts that it created, and millions of people have already paid the price – in unemployment, social dislocation, busted banks and businesses, shrinking economic opportunities and all the ills of a world unnecessarily impoverished and which must now pick itself up, dust itself down and, above all, not forget what happened and why.

      As an investment banker – and a very senior one – I was part of the privileged elite that brought this about. We benefited enormously from decades of artificially inflated prices, a bonus-driven culture based on ‘me now, and I want it all’, and torrents of cheap money that we thought would last forever. We thought we knew best. We had to be smart. Look how much we were taking home. You don’t earn that kind of money for being average, do you?

      Not only that – we actually created money. We hired bright young things with PhDs in subjects that no one really understands, let them loose with computer programmes and enough computing firepower to win a war. And yes, we let them loose to swing your money around, because they were winners. Except they lost. Massive miscalculations that should have been picked up by checks and balances in the system, by older, wiser heads, even by regulators and government – please, don’t laugh – were not only missed but wilfully ignored, until the computer-gaming generation of geeks let loose on trading floors learnt that when things go wrong in the real world you can’t press Restart, and all those extra zeroes on the end do matter after all.

      We had a hell of a party, and the rest of the world had our hangover.

      The bank of which I had the privilege to be chairman, Erste Frankfurter Grossbank, was at one time the largest bank in the world. I joined it from Bartons, one of the UK’s oldest, most traditional names. In the game of life, I was a winner.

      I was paid millions of pounds a year, even in bad years when things went wrong. When they went well – generally because of market conditions rather than anything we did – I was paid tens of millions. But did it make me happy?

      Of course it did. I loved every minute of it. Money isn’t guaranteed to buy you happiness, but it sure helps. I’d be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t enjoy the lifestyle: the fine wine, the expensive, easy women, the drugs, the accumulation of material possessions – property, art, fast cars, the travel in helicopters and private jets (we called them ‘smokers’) to exclusive resorts where the great unwashed who eventually bailed us out didn’t even get to press their noses against the glass. Still don’t, in fact. If it is true, as someone once said, that politics is show business for ugly people, then high finance is show business for rich ones. Either way, we got the pussy. And I loved it

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