Any Other Business – 06/09
Two former Merrill Lynch corporate financiers – Mervyn Metcalf and Graeme Atkinson – who flew the corporate nest last year to found the trendy Soho-based Dean Street Advisers, have now poached one of their mutual former colleagues from boutique firm Global Leisure Partners. Kevin Berry (pictured) has just joined Dean Street after three months of gardening leave. “He better not ask me for any holiday anytime soon” joked Metcalf.
The Capitalist’s spies have been reporting from the learned educational institution of Oxford University this week, as it debates the ethics of banking at the annual reputation symposium hosted by the Said Business School’s Centre for Corporate Reputation. On the point of whether banks have changed their ways, Frank Partnoy, ex-Morgan Stanley derivatives structurer and author of Fiasco, was firmly in the nay camp. Partnoy described the attitude in the City as like “building a reputation for fidelity with your wife just so you can cheat on her”. However, on the other side The Capitalist was pleased to hear that ex-Merrill Lynch banker Bob Wigley was standing by his profession and fighting the banks’ corner by gently reminding the room that banks “are there to make a profit.”