Richard Boath

Richard Boath seems to have lots of friends and no enemies. He is also seen to be a very creative banker. Some say that when he left Salomon Brother's London office (along with 10 others) in the spring of 1999, he set off a chain of events that eventually led to his old firm buying Schroders. "When he left," recalls a former colleague, "lights started flashing in New York."

One of the reasons that Boath left Salomon was his frustration at the restrictions on the development of its investment banking. After he left, Michael Klein and Edward Miller were parachuted into the London office to sort this out. After a few months Klein apparently concluded that the firm, part of Citigroup following the merger of Citibank and Travelers, the owner of Salomon Smith Barney, was not going to be able to develop a leading European investment banking business organically.