April 2013 marks my seventh anniversary with Euromoney. During that time, I have watched, sometimes awe-struck, sometimes gobsmacked, developments in the financial markets. I have written about big banks, hedge funds, asset managers and the twists and turns of politics at these institutions.
Helped by my two decades as an investment banker, and thus a quasi-insider, I have tried to shine a torch on a few crevices where journalists don’t normally poke around. I have made many friends and a few enemies. I have had some good calls: I warned about the weak Lehman’s board before anyone else connected the dots (2006), I wrote that Nomura’s purchase of Lehman’s European and Asian operations would not work (2009, 2010 and 2011).
I consistently worried about Barclays and whether or not Bob Diamond might be Icarus reborn. I expressed doubts that James Gorman would find it easy to turn the fortunes of Morgan Stanley around and I was convinced that Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis’s acquisition of Countrywide would be a mistake and that he had paid too much for Merrill Lynch when he bought it, during the crazy, hazy days of September 2008.