Peregrine's last days, by Andre Lee
First start in investment banking
Pioneering the Asian bond business
Building the business at Peregrine
The approach of the Asian financial crisis
Was there much cooperation with other parts of the firm, for example over marketing to issuers that might want to issue either equity or debt? We would definitely do it from time to time. But you have to understand that Peregrine Fixed Income's business and its client base was very different from the rest of Peregrine's.
Did you have problems with Peregrine's overseas offices?
Many times. In fact, it was very frustrating. We tried to be very selective in the countries in which we did businesses in. The country heads began to come and say: "Why aren't you doing business in my country? And if you're not going to do it, I'm going to do it and push the issue." They would actually go out and hire people to do fixed income business almost to the point where we were under the threat that unless we stretched ourselves we would end up competing with ourselves.
Philip at that point said: "Look this is not going to happen, this cannot happen."