The Ego Has Landed (Dave Hart 3)

by David Charters

  Luckily for me, that’s exactly what the Silver Fox does.

  Late on Sunday evening, I do another interview, this time in a TV studio in Frankfurt, with a leading German business commentator.

  ‘Mister Hart, the Grossbank campaign has attracted over five million new account holders for your bank in a single week, but it still has not stopped your share price falling to a little more than forty euros a share. It has almost halved since you announced this new initiative. How can you say it has been a success?’

  ‘The Grossbank share price has been manipulated downwards. It’s being sold short artificially by mostly foreign institutions – hedge funds and speculators. These people have no understanding of business, let alone morality. For them this is all about short-term profit. And you’re right, what they’ve done has been to force our share price down to little more than half the level of a week ago. But that’s good news.’

  ‘Good news? I don’t think your shareholders would agree, Mister Hart.’

  ‘Right now, perhaps not. But when the benefit of five million new account holders works through to profits, there’ll be a different story. And in the meantime, the share price at such an artificially low level presents a huge opportunity.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Anyone who believes in Grossbank and what it’s doing should buy our shares. They’ve been forced down to this level by international manipulators and at forty euros they are a bargain. The people who voted with their feet by moving bank accounts should buy our shares too. Buy one share, buy two or three or five or whatever you can afford. Buy them for yourself, for your children or your grandchildren. Because you’re investing in an institution that will change the way business is done. This is not for now, it’s for the future. For all of our futures.’

  In fact, the particular future I have uppermost in my mind is my own, but I say all this with my best ‘earnest conviction’ look, head tilted sympathetically to one side, leaning forward into the camera, smiling, relaxed and positive. Out of camera shot, the Silver Fox gives me a double thumbs-up.

  I’ve done my bit, now we need to see what tomorrow brings. I leave the Silver Fox in the studio chatting to the presenter and head back to my hotel room to ponder my future with Inge, twenty-three, from Cologne, and Iona, twenty-one, from Athens. I try not to think too much about what will happen next.

  * * *

  TWICE IN the twentieth century the world learnt to tremble when the Germans went on tour. On Monday morning they do it again, only this time they do it peacefully.

  From the trading floor at Grossbank in London, Paul Ryan is giving me a running commentary. ‘Massive retail buying, there’s been more volume in the first hour of trading than in the whole of Friday. Millions of individual orders. The Exchange are saying the shares may have to be suspended if it continues. They’re already close to capacity and the system could crash.’

  ‘But where are we on price?’ I’m still in my hotel near the Grossbank Tower in Frankfurt, preferring not to show my face to the board until I know what’s happening.

  ‘So far, we’re up two euros, hovering around the forty-three level. The hedgies are doubling up, going for quits, and some of the prop desks at the other banks are having a swing at us too.’ Damn. The proprietary trading teams at the major investment banks are effectively powerful hedge funds in their own right, swinging their firms’ capital around and sometimes moving markets regardless of what actual investors are doing. Soulless bastards, turning on one of their own – not that I wouldn’t do the same, of course.

  ‘What’s the outlook?’

  ‘Sorry to say it, but it’s not good, boss.’

  Damn. I’m sending millions of foot soldiers over the top, ordinary Germans who are putting their savings where their mouths are and taking on the hedge funds and the prop desks. But these are the big battalions of the finance world and they are mowing my guys down like the first day of the Somme. Not that I could give a shit, but if it doesn’t work then it could be a disaster. I could lose my job, and that would be serious. I could be history. I watch as our share price starts to fall again, dropping through the forty-two level, and then through forty-one. I’ve only card left to play. I call Two Livers.

  ‘I need a favour.’

  ‘Boss, you need more than that. You need the Seventh Cavalry.’

  ‘I want you to call Tripod Turner.’

  There’s a silence at the other end of the line. Tripod Turner and Two Livers were close once upon a time. He’s the London-based Chief Investment Officer of the Boston International Group, the world’s largest investing institution. Physically massive, he’s said to be the biggest swinging dick of all – hence the nickname – and we are sort of buddies, though not in the way that he and Two Livers once were. I have asked her if it’s true about his alleged sheer physical size, but she discreetly looked away and pretended not to hear.

  ‘I don’t want to pressurise you, but it’s now or never. We’ve got one shot at this. Leave it another hour and we’re done.’

  Still there’s silence.

  ‘Are you there? Hello?’

  The line’s gone dead. Damn. I misplayed that one. Should never have asked. Maybe I should call him myself. Ask for a favour. No, beg for a favour. Except that never works. Once the market knows you’re desperate, you’re history. Kindness is for girls.

  Around mid-day I watch as the stock goes through forty euros. I turn off the TV and start drafting my resignation letter. I’m half-way through it when my cell phone goes. It’s Paul Ryan.

  ‘Boss – have you seen this? It’s amazing.’

  ‘Seen what?’

  ‘This interview – on EuroBizTv. Get yourself in front of a screen right now. It’s Tripod Turner!’

  I flick the remote control and sure enough, there is the big man, sitting scratching himself in his office, tie undone, shirt sleeves rolled up, bright red braces with golden dollar signs and the initials ‘B.I.G.’ on them.

  ‘…and we perceive it as a major, indeed a permanent shift in the banking landscape, not just in Europe, but globally. Banks will have to do business differently in future. And Grossbank is leading the way. In the long run, we see it as very positive for Grossbank’s earnings and overall positioning. That’s why we’re moving to a heavily overweight position in their stock, while selling off others.’

  I half scream into the mobile. ‘What’s going on in the market? Are they buying?’

  ‘Buying? They’re stampeding. There’s blood on the streets. It’s terrible – terribly good for us, that is.’

  I feel like crying. In fact between you and me, I might have done. It was only afterwards, at the post-mortem that I got the whole story.

  Boston International Group – ‘BIG by name, big by nature’ – is a trillion dollar monster. In stock market terms, they are like an elephant: when they decide to sit down, they sit down, and you’d better not be underneath when they do.

  The people who were selling Grossbank shares short at forty-five euros, hoping to buy them back at a lower price, were suddenly faced with an avalanche of buying that drove the price back up. If it went above the price at which they had sold, they were looking at a money-losing trade, so they had better buy the shares they needed as soon as they could. Only BIG was in there first, hoovering up anything that moved, and doing so in the kind of size that dwarfed the rest of the market.

  Three or four of the biggest hedge funds, reacting fastest to the change in circumstances, did the stock market equivalent of a handbrake turn. You could almost hear the screeching of brakes and the screaming of tortured tyres as people who were the biggest sellers suddenly became huge buyers.

  For the retail buyers, the ordinary members of the public investing their savings, BIG’s arrival was like hearing the bugles and seeing the cavalry charging over the hill.

  Only BIG isn’t the Seventh Cavalry. BIG is America’s – and the world’s – largest money manager. It’s the US Marine Corps, the Sixth Fleet and the
82nd Airborne all rolled into one. By the time the market closed, our share price was back through sixty euros and heading north. By the end of the week it hit a high for the year of ninety-five. And I’m a hero.

  Phew.

  * * *

  THE THING about heroes is that they tend to be magnanimous in victory. Well, I’m not. Some devious, underhand individual has leaked to the press an internal Grossbank memo from a couple of weeks ago in which Herman states that the entire Grossbank Foundation fiasco is down to me, I should take responsibility, and in his view I should be sacked and the Foundation should be limited to one per cent of net profits.

  He’s instantly transformed into the most hated man in Germany. I don’t mean just averagely disliked for a couple of days until the papers get bored and move onto something more important, like some actress’s boob job or a rock star’s latest divorce. This man is hated. It is not just the millions of members of the public who bought our shares – and profited handsomely – who hate him, but all those righteous individuals who want to see big business sharing more of the spoils. Wherever he turns, people are condemning him, and they want his scalp. He’s the lead in all the German papers, and politicians of all parties are competing to outdo each other in the Bundestag in the strength of their public damnation of this personification of evil. Some whackos even threaten to kill him. Poor fellow. Can you imagine what it must be like?

  As an honourable man, he has no alternative but to offer his resignation, which is accepted. It takes the board less than an hour to put in a call to me inviting me to consider taking his place as Chairman of Grossbank. I need less than half a second to decide to accept, but I make a show of reflecting on it over the weekend and disappear with Breathless Beth and Beate for some R&R in Cap Ferrat.

  * * *

  Putting me in charge of Grossbank is like giving whisky and car keys to a seventeen year old boy.

  I arrive in Frankfurt a week later for my first board meeting, and head up to my office on the fifty-fourth floor of the Grossbank Tower. I haven’t actually seen this office before, but it is suitably vast – nearly a hundred feet across – high tech, high spec, full of tasteless chrome and glass and generally excessive, resembling the headquarters of the chief villain in one of the early Bond movies.

  Just to show how utterly vulgar they think I am, they’ve brought a Damon Hersh Elephant in Formaldehyde giant glass-tank from the bank’s contemporary art collection and installed it in the office, presumably as a conversation piece, or maybe because the ‘artist’ and I share the same initials.

  When I travel to Frankfurt for board meetings, the Meat Factory come with me, along with Maria, and of course Two Livers and Paul Ryan, as my right hands, and Rory to carry the bags. Two Livers and Paul have been promoted. They are now co-heads of global investment banking. From a practical standpoint, it makes no difference, since between them they ran investment banking anyway. I was just the boss, and always took a ‘hands off’ stance – at least with regard to Paul – so that they could get on with the task of making things happen, while I concentrated on not fucking things up, which I’ve generally felt is the best contribution most heads of investment banks can make to their teams, leaving the markets to do the rest.

  I’ve always believed that it is easier to seek forgiveness than permission, and on that basis intend to try to change things radically from the start, taking advantage of my honeymoon period as Chairman to force things through before the Grossbank bureaucracy smothers me and the walls close in the way they do in all large organisations and ultimately institutionalise me.

  The first thing I’m going to change is the board. The only detail is that they don’t know it yet.

  The only board member I’ve really known, other than Herman, is an old guy called Biedermann. When I first joined the bank, Biedermann led the opposition to the future direction of the firm, saying the investment banking strategy would waste the legacy of the bank, ruin its good name and ultimately serve only to line the pockets of the hot-shot foreigners who would come in and fleece them.

  In principle, he was right, and I agreed with him, though I didn’t say so at the time. What he described is what investment bankers typically do to sleepy commercial banks. But I guess I just got lucky. Or at least I hired people who got lucky. It’s worked. And now Biedermann has retired, allegedly on grounds of ill health – presumably brought on by the prospect of calling me Chairman – and I’m left with a room full of ancient, fossilised strangers.

  They are all seated round the board table when I arrive, and I instinctively go to the far end of the room, where I used to sit when I had to present myself to get approval for whatever nonsense I wanted to do in London.

  Someone gives a meaningful cough, and I turn and see that they are all waiting for me to take my place at the head of the table.

  Christ, I’m in charge. How terrifying. But it’s also exhilarating. They nod respectfully and I nod back. I assume they all speak English, but just in case I keep nodding and give them all a friendly smile. It’s the last bit of friendly they’ll be seeing from me.

  An agenda and board pack were sent to me a week ago, but I didn’t bother to read them. I’ve got a different agenda in mind for today’s meeting.

  ‘Gentlemen, good morning.’

  A few of them pick up earpieces from the table and insert them in their ears. Are they really that geriatric? No, they just don’t speak English.

  ‘First, let me say how honoured I feel to be sitting here today, and how privileged to assume such a great office. I look forward to great times ahead for the bank and for its employees and clients around the world. And of course for its shareholders.’ Particularly those with senior management share option packages. ‘I want this board meeting – my first – to follow a slightly unusual agenda, and propose to disregard the normal business items.’

  This causes a stir. The fossils aren’t accustomed to change. Probably haven’t known change in decades – since they were alive in fact.

  ‘Today I want to focus on the community that is Grossbank.’ I hold my arms out wide to indicate how broad a community it is. ‘Our people.’

  A few of them are frowning, and one or two are tapping their earpieces and glancing at each other.

  ‘We need to show leadership to this great organisation.’ This at least they can relate to, and nod their heads in agreement. ‘We need to reflect the values we claim to espouse at the highest level of the firm.’ More nodding. ‘There’s only one way to lead, and that’s from the front. Or should I say the top?’ They’re relaxing again now, it looks as if this is just another of those bullshit corporate values speeches.

  I look down at some notes prepared for me by Paul Ryan. ‘Gentlemen, do you realise that there are over seventy thousand employees working for Grossbank worldwide?’

  They smile indulgently. The new kid is just getting his head around quite how big the firm is.

  ‘Or that we have one-hundred-and-six different nationalities working for us?’ They nod again. I take a deep breath and look around the room. ‘But only two around this table.’

  I’m expecting a long dramatic pause, but instead one of them pipes up.

  ‘Is zat correct? My grandfather was Sviss.’ It’s a fossil to my right, two places down, I think his name is Hagmann and he runs the bank’s business in Swabia.

  ‘Your grandfather?’

  He nods. Typical fucking Swabian. I take another deep breath.

  ‘Okay, Doktor Hagmann, that’s very helpful, thank you. Let’s say two and a half. I don’t really count the Swiss.’ I look at my notes again. ‘And the average age of our employees is thirty-five.’ I stare meaningfully around the table. ‘The average age in this board room is sixty-eight. It dropped significantly when I joined.’ Now they are looking perplexed. What is the new boy getting at? ‘And forty per cent of our employees are women. There are no women here.’ Unless… no, none of these is a woman.

  One of them laughs. ‘But are you sug
gesting we should put women on the board?’

  ‘Why not? Women are different.’ I should know. ‘They care. Granted, it can be a terrible weakness, but they do offer a different perspective.’

  Now they’re really tapping their earpieces, looking at each other, wondering what’s coming next. Is it as they feared, and they’ve appointed a nutcase to the board? Of course not. It’s far more serious than that. Do you remember the movie Alien, when the crew of a spaceship were stuck in space with a ferocious man-eating monster that had acid for blood? This is going to be worse than Alien. I’m going to get them to eat each other.

  ‘None of us gets out of here alive.’ This really rocks them and I put my hand up in case they panic and their pacemakers overload. ‘It’s a figure of speech. Gentlemen, we pass this way but once, and it’s our duty, our obligation, to make the world a better place for our passing. We’re doing that with the Grossbank Foundation, and we need to do it with the way this mighty firm is run. We need to set the tone at the top, and if that means self-sacrifice, then so be it.’

  Amazingly, they’re nodding their agreement. Honour, duty, self-sacrifice all play well with this generation of Germans. Which is why none of them is cut out for investment banking.

  ‘We need to bring down the average age of this board by twenty years, half the board should be women, and I want at least three more foreigners – don’t care if they come from Timbuktu, but I want them.’