Search results for

Australian banking

Hugh McColl is a hard act to follow. He was, after all, the man who turned a small south-east regional bank into one of the world's largest financial institutions. And he had a reputation for toughness. A former marine, he kept a grenade on his desk and would give it to any employee that had disappointed him.

Hints of a revival of M&A activity should not breed false hopes of a new boom. Accounting rule changes are forcing acquirers to write down goodwill on pricey deals, fuelling the view that M&A doesn’t create shareholder value but destroys it.

A typical caricature of an investment banker is an expensively besuited man with a briefcase, Breitling watch and mobile phone, evoking an image of wealth, refinement and arrogance. It's not a man wearing a camel-hair coat and a lot of gaudy jewellery. But perhaps it should be since the business of a banker is akin to that of the stereotypical second-hand car salesman in London's East End. Both banker and car dealer preach quality and respect for the client but both are middlemen, squeezing profit from the two sides of a trade.

Consolidation, including the transformation of regional banks from competitors of the biggest forex banks to their customers, is moving on apace. Only the biggest dealers are in a position to offer the wide range of interlinked services demanded by their largest customers and to invest in winning technology.

Cantor Fitzgerald’s prescience in buying up financial e-commerce patents could boost its earnings as it rebuilds after its tragic September 11 staff losses. Its claims, though, have not gone unchallenged and sympathy for the firm might wane as litigation proliferates.

Russia

Forex trading platform Atriax was backed by some of the biggest-hitting banks. Its failure marks it out as yet another example of how bad technology and poor management can ruin a good idea.

Chief executive at Dimensional Fund Advisors

Fund management

A point of increasing concern for Poland and its foreign investors is the extent to which the new government is committed to the rapid pace of privatization that characterized the country's successful early transformation into a market economy. On present form doubts are emerging about its willingness to press ahead with the rest of the job, particularly in strategic sectors and where the already high unemployment rate is likely to be increased.

Argentina