Greed Can Be Good: Why Investment Banking May Be Broken, But Doesn’t Need Fixing by David Charters
What’s it all about:
is there any value
in what we do?
is there any value
in what we do?
I have often said that investment banking is the triumph
of form over substance. Very little we do ever adds value
to anyone other than ourselves. We take other people’s
money, typically in very large quantities, and we move
it around, doing clever things with it that they don’t
fully understand and which, over time, generally make
it grow less than it would if we had left it alone, and
sometimes reducing or even destroying it altogether –
although never before we have taken our cut.
We do the same thing with entire businesses. We call
it Mergers and Acquisitions – M&A – and the people
who do it are among the most cerebral, distinguished,
plausible people in the investment banking industry.
They devote their lives to disrupting existing corporate
structures; taking successful businesses and carving
them up, pushing them together, loading them with
debt, distracting successful management teams from
what they are successfully doing already, and generally
causing mayhem. Imagine if a happily married couple
were told they had to move in with another couple, get
of form over substance. Very little we do ever adds value
to anyone other than ourselves. We take other people’s
money, typically in very large quantities, and we move
it around, doing clever things with it that they don’t
fully understand and which, over time, generally make
it grow less than it would if we had left it alone, and
sometimes reducing or even destroying it altogether –
although never before we have taken our cut.
We do the same thing with entire businesses. We call
it Mergers and Acquisitions – M&A – and the people
who do it are among the most cerebral, distinguished,
plausible people in the investment banking industry.
They devote their lives to disrupting existing corporate
structures; taking successful businesses and carving
them up, pushing them together, loading them with
debt, distracting successful management teams from
what they are successfully doing already, and generally
causing mayhem. Imagine if a happily married couple
were told they had to move in with another couple, get
Greed Can Be Good: Why Investment Banking May Be Broken, But Doesn’t Need Fixing by David Charters
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