Wednesday 23 December 2009

Message to Gordon Brown: Britain needs more investment bankers!

It is time for the banking industry to end the closed shop. Britain simply hasn't enough investment bankers. If it had, then salaries and bonuses would not be so crazy!

This week it was announced that some staff retained by the Lehman Brothers' liquidators have been paid seven figure sums to help with the fallout from the bank's collapse one year ago. "The problem is that you have to pay these numbers in order to get staff who understand and can unwind these complex trades."

And why? Because only a small number of people know how to engage in the dark arts of securitisation and derivatives trading in the first place. It is a straightforward issue of supply and demand. Yes, of course you are going to have to pay crazy numbers, if these guys keep the dark arts to themselves.

More on this later....