DOWN WITH INNOVATION!
The best brains in investment banking wrestle daily with this problem: how to persuade one of America's giant corporates to come to market. The incentives are the fees to be made, the cachet of a top US name, and the opportunity to make money on the positioning and trading of brand-new securities. But do these superbrains go about it in the right way? According to their clients, usually not. A series of Euromoney interviews with large US borrowers revealed some surprising dissatisfactions.
Investment bankers complained that treasurers at both industrial corporations and financial concerns are not much good at wrestling with the gritty details of capital market issues. What's more, the innovations dreamed up by the investment bankers are not much admired by the treasurers.
A rabble of creative and aggressive rivals is daily battering at the same door, hanging on the same telephone line, and filling the same in-tray.
The most tactful and sympathetic of financial officers finds it difficult to deal with this onslaught without appearing rude, callous and insensitive. "Saying no is the hardest part of our job," admitted one treasurer.
"You have to be selective about who you listen to," said IBM's Jon Rotenstreich.