Dave Hart Omnibus

by David Charters

  ‘Who cares? Here’s to the Korean Farmers’ Bank, London Capital Markets Department. I’m an undemanding sort of guy. As long as I have a six-figure salary and an expense account, I’ll be happy.’

  I’m actually quite troubled. Dan could be right. However much I squeeze out of Bartons, I’ll burn through it in no time, or if I don’t, Wendy will – and then what will I do? The thing about friends is that they tell it to you straight. Dan and I will always be friends. We both know too much not to be.

  Dan drains his glass. ‘No more for me – I’ve got a seven o’clock flight tomorrow morning. Fancy a Chinese or an Indian on the way home?’

  I shake my head. ‘Nah. I think I’ll go for a Ukrainian, or maybe a couple of Brazilians.’

  It is only much later, when the girls have gone, and I’m alone again in the flat, that I get round to playing the answer-phone messages. I delete a couple from Wendy, and then come to one from a head-hunter.

  ‘Mister Hart, my name is Susannah Grainger. I work for McLintey Dobbs, the executive search firm. We haven’t met before, but you come highly recommended, and I wonder if you might be able to help us with an assignment we’re working on. I’d be very grateful for your advice on a search we’re conducting for someone who can run the London-headquartered investment banking operations of a major Continental European banking group. I’ll try you again tomorrow, or if you have a moment, perhaps you’d be kind enough to call me on…’

  I scribble the number down. Head-hunters always ask for ‘advice’, when they are really asking if you’re interested. Am I interested? Hell, yes.

  LARGE, SLOW-MOVING Continental European banks with huge wedges of capital but small or nonexistent investment banking operations, are like dinosaurs: too much weight and not enough brainpower to turn it around. They typically have highly profitable domestic franchises, based around hard-working citizens who save lots of money and demand little interest when they feed it into the branch network. They also tend to have large stakes in industrial companies dating back decades, often valued at nowhere near the current market price. Their board members see themselves as guarding the legacy of the past, unadventurous types who pay themselves little and take pride in offering their employees a job for life. Their businesses are both profitable and secure, if a little conservative.

  Clearly, what these people need is me.

  I’m sitting in the offices of McLinty Dobbs in St James’s Square, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the annual report and accounts of EFG Bank – Erste Frankfurter Grossbank, one of the heavyweights of the German banking sector. Grossbank in German is a generic term meaning major bank, and these guys were the first one set up in Frankfurt – hence ‘Erste Frankfurter’. Luckily someone round there spoke enough English to realise that answering the phone as First Frankfurter doesn’t make a lot of sense, so instead they wisely chose to be known simply as Grossbank. Damned clever, these Germans. They only have a tiny London-based investment banking operation, but have recently appointed a new, and apparently thrusting, Chairman. Susannah Grainger is sitting opposite me with one of her colleagues, looking at a printout of my CV, which I e-mailed before the meeting. She’s mid-forties, very thin, adequately dressed in a business suit that does little for her, and which I don’t recognise, and has no interesting jewellery. I guess she can’t be doing that well.

  ‘The new chairman, Herman Schwartz, why does he think I’d be suitable? We’ve never met. He wouldn’t know me from Adam.’

  Susannah looks up from my CV. ‘To be absolutely honest, I think it’s what you did in Jamaica that caught his eye. You got a lot of coverage in the German press, you know. There were apparently some vivid eyewitness accounts of what happened from some of the German guests staying at the hotel.’ Eyewitnesses? Shit. My cheek starts twitching. But she looks at me respectfully, as you would someone who has charged a gang of armed thugs, saved a little boy and killed their leader in single combat.

  These days, people fortunate enough to be born in the Western world rarely encounter deadly violence. We have to suffer petty crime, and a very few of us might choose to serve in the armed forces, and be sent to dangerous places, but for most of us killing is something we hear about on the news or watch at the cinema.

  That’s why I’m exceptional.

  ‘I see. And did you… check with Rory, as I suggested?’

  ‘Yes. He confirmed the circumstances of your departure, the fact that you need a broader canvas – that was how he put it – and said very complimentary things about you. He was very helpful, and it’s wonderful that someone so senior should make himself available at such short notice. I have to say, though, that he came across as rather nervous. I wonder if he thinks he’s made a big mistake allowing you to leave Bartons.’

  I can’t help smiling. ‘Oh, I don’t know. How many alpha males can you get in the same room? I think if we’re honest it’s best for both of us to put some space between us.’

  She nods. ‘When I questioned him, he said something very similar himself.’

  I sit back and smile. ‘So when do I go to Frankfurt?’

  THE NEW GROSSBANK tower is a landmark on the Frankfurt skyline. I’m whisked into town from the airport in a dark grey S-class Mercedes with a uniformed chauffeur, straight into the underground car park, where the head of personnel is waiting to greet me and take me to the fiftyfourth floor. Two very dour, Brünnhilde-like receptionists – definitely unfuckable, built like wardrobes – give me the once-over, and ask in guttural Germanic accents if I want the bathroom (‘No, thank you, I had a shower before takeoff’). Then I’m shown into a high-tech conference room with the most staggering view, that surely ought to be used as a film set for the next Bond movie.

  Eleven elderly retired bank manager types are sitting around the conference table, staring at me with suspicion and perhaps a little nervousness, as if I’ve come to steal their wallets. I have. I want to say, ‘Relax, guys, I’m the one being interviewed’, but I know it would be wrong. Instead I stand at the end of the table, incline my head slightly towards them, just stop myself from clicking my heels and say, ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’ A few of them – presumably the ones who are not yet dead – incline their heads slightly in my direction, and one or two mutter ‘Guten Morgen’. My hand-made silk suit probably cost more than all of theirs combined, and I feel for a moment conspicuously overdressed, but then I remember that they are hiring me to be an investment banker, and it’s better that I look the part.

  I’m about to sit down, when the doors behind me burst open, and a younger, much more vigorous man in a half-way decent suit strides in. I recognise him as Herman Schwartz – ‘Herman the German’ – and I’m relieved to see that he’s actually wearing an Hermès tie. He pumps my hands vigorously, looking sleek and elegant with his dark, carefully trimmed hair, his perma-tan complexion and his neat, slim figure. I know that he’s forty-nine years old, and the youngest Chairman in the Bank’s history, but he doesn’t look a day over forty.

  ‘Dave – may I call you Dave? – welcome to Frankfurt. We’re very excited to meet you, aren’t we, gentlemen?’

  He looks to his colleagues for agreement, and most nod, though a few could easily be asleep, and some possibly don’t understand English.

  We sit down, he introduces his colleagues while coffee is served, and then the formal part begins.

  Much of it is standard stuff. While I never really thought I’d be in this kind of situation, I’m a fast learner and I quickly identify their hot buttons. One key point is that they want me to tell them how they are perceived in the market. They are seeking a candid opinion, so I nod gravely and pause to reflect before replying. This stuff is so easy, just like pitching to a client. I’ve been doing it for years and even in my sleep I could lie for England.

  ‘A sleeping giant.’ In other words, fat, dumb and happy. ‘Grossbank is hugely well capitalised, the only triple-A rated bank left in Germany.’ Let me loose here and I’ll soon change that. ‘But it’s n
ever realised its full potential. It’s never stretched itself outside its domestic market.’ It’s just stuck to solid, profitable business that it knows and understands. We’ll soon change that as well. ‘To the outside world, it’s incredible that a bank of this size, of this historic importance, should be a lion at home and frankly a mouse overseas, especially when international markets represent the best growth potential going forward. Standing still is not an option. We have to take this firm forward.’ Forward and downward in the next great recycling operation of dumb foreign money in the City of London.

  ‘But can we succeed?’ It’s one of the grey men, and I need to be careful because I actually thought he was asleep.

  ‘With respect, that’s the wrong question. We must succeed. It’s not if, but how. Failure is not a possibility!’ I bang my fist down on the table as I say this, and right on cue my face starts twitching. They all perk up and pay attention, and several of them, including Schwartz himself, start nodding their heads vigorously. I sometimes feel sorry for the older generation of Germans. It’s hard for them to show true aggression without feeling guilty about their country’s past and coming over all anxious that people will think they’re going off to invade small nations again. But as a foreigner, albeit a potentially soonto-be-hired gun, I have no such inhibitions. ‘Gentlemen – the bank already has a presence in the London market, but it’s neither one thing nor the other. Too big to be a niche player, and too small to go head-to-head with the big boys. It’s forwards or die. I have a clear vision for what can be achieved in the London market. The only question is whether we have the will to deliver!’

  I go off into a rant about how I’ve identified the ten major business areas that the bank should focus on, and how we will become a top three player in all of them within three years. We will swoop on other firms, hiring their best teams, paying premium rates for the best people in each business area, then let them loose with the full balance-sheet of the bank behind them. We’ll take bigger positions, place bigger bets, and unleash the full unrealised potential of the most talented people in the market. Resistance is futile. Victory is inevitable.

  Quite whether I could actually do any of this is another thing. As a mid-ranking, relatively low-flying MD at Bartons, no one ever trusted me to try. And why should they? Only arch politicians like Rory got to play with the full train-set.

  ‘What would you need in order to succeed?’ This from Herman the German. All eyes are on me now.

  ‘Carte blanche to hire and fire in your London operation as I see fit. Overall authority for running the investment banking business globally, including those parts of it that are located here in Frankfurt. In principle, agreement on the broad thrust of the product by product approach that I’ve just described and direct budgetary authority to implement it – and gentlemen, I’m assuming we’ll invest a billion euros in the first year, and we’ll be underwater for the first three years of operations. That’s how long we’ll need before the full potential of the huge money machine we’re building can be released.’ And I’ll have left by then, having passed Go three times and collected the kind of money that would make Rory turn green.

  ‘And what would you seek personally, always assuming you were successful?’ This comes from one of the oldest board members present, someone not yet carried along by Herman’s enthusiasm.

  ‘Do you mean my own package?’ He nods and glances at some of his colleagues. ‘My own package would be huge.’ He gives them an ‘I told you so’ look. ‘It has to be. None of the top professionals we’d be looking to hire would take the career risk of joining a relatively unknown name without significant upside. And in investment banking, you lead from the top. People expect their bosses to be high earners.’ I briefly catch Herman’s eye. This is clearly music to his ears, not that he would ever put his personal interests before those of the bank, obviously. I shrug carelessly. ‘I don’t care about the detail, only the big picture. It has to be convincing, gentlemen – the going rate and then some.’ For once I’m relieved that my cheek doesn’t start twitching.

  MY FIRST CHRISTMAS alone since I got married passes in an alcohol and drug fuelled haze of heaving, panting, naked bodies. Did I say drugs? What I meant to say is that there were a lot of parties where certain people were doing drugs. I admit I occasionally have a glass too many of falling over juice, and I have from time to time been partial to the fairer sex, but drugs are not my scene. Honestly.

  As a newly single man, with a bank balance freshly fattened for Christmas by Rory’s generosity – I got him up to three million, to the amazement of Bartons’ HR department – and Wendy still camping out in Buckinghamshire with Samantha, I had a ball. In fact, several balls, often on the same night.

  Wendy doesn’t know about the settlement with Bartons, for which I opened a new bank account, and I have to be careful not to create the wrong impression, but recklessly I decided to send Samantha a last minute surprise: half the toy department at Harrods, knowing that Wendy’s mother lives in a tiny cottage where it would be impossible to unpack, let alone play with, a full-sized Wendy house, a Cinderella castle, giant-sized cuddly toys of all the Disney characters, nine different dressing-up outfits, and two new tricycles.

  I sent Wendy nothing.

  She called on Christmas morning, but I cut her off before she could say a word. ‘Don’t say a thing. Don’t expect me to apologise, don’t expect any regrets. Anything I may have done I did because you drove me to it. You pushed me over the edge, and now here we are. Before you complain, before you accuse, think about it.’

  Then I hung up dramatically and ignored it when the phone kept ringing, partly because I thought it was the right thing to do, and partly because I was too busy with Tygra, nineteen, from Estonia, and Charlotte, twentyone, from Lithuania, for whom I had bought presents.

  Like all good things, it came to an end, and in the first week of January I started work at Grossbank, on a package of ‘three by five’ – a five-million pound a year bonus, guaranteed for three years – with the same again in employee stock, plus a million sign-on (i.e., they pay me a million pounds just for turning up on the first day) and a further ten-million pound package of stock that vests in five years if I’m still around and achieve certain pretty astronomical revenue targets (I very cleverly hung out for this, because it made them think I might be here for the long term – as if…) I’m counting on Wendy not reading the financial press, because there are some inconvenient reports that I wouldn’t want her to see:

  Grossbank are rumoured to be paying top dollar for City hard man and former Bartons investment banker Dave Hart, who last year hit the headlines when he took on Yardie gangsters in Jamaica, killing their leader and rescuing British toddler Toby Mills.

  Hart, who still sports a prominent scar from a machete wound, was unavailable for comment…

  That’s it, I have my label now. I’m ‘City hard man’ – me! I’ve been defined. In any event, I need a disguise to wear to work at the new firm, and City hard man seems fair enough, at least for people who don’t know me. So I summon up my full chameleon-like capabilities and morph into a City hard man – or at least what I think a real City hard man might be like, if ever there were such a thing.

  It doesn’t help that it’s January, when most of the City goes dry. After the pre-Christmas excesses, bodies saturated with alcohol are drying out. This is when people briefly start going to the gym, try to lose a few pounds, and generally get serious. Where before they might have gone out at lunchtime, now they stay at their workstations. Where before they met for drinks after work, now they return home, miserable, unfulfilled, full of suppressed rage.

  And the markets roar. Analysts talk about the January effect in the stock market, referring to the way in which share prices soar – and sometimes plunge – amid heavy volumes of aggressive trading. Theses have been written about why it happens, but behind closed doors we know. Fifty thousand market makers, traders, sales traders, dealers and brokers are drying out.
And they’re like a whole herd of buffalo with sore heads.

  That’s the backdrop when I arrive at the Grossbank London office on my first Monday morning.

  GROSSBANK ARE in a small building off Threadneedle Street, not far from the Bank of England, but a million miles from the giant concrete and glass palaces of Bartons and the other major firms. A few hundred people work here, but until now I’ve never even met someone from Grossbank London, let alone known anyone – they were just too far down the food chain.

  Sometimes new bosses like to make an impression by arriving at the crack of dawn, catching everyone unprepared, and then proceed to install a new regime of early morning meetings to show how macho they are. For their first month, they don’t leave the office until late into the evening, forcing everyone else to stay at their workstations. And they appear in the office at weekends, checking on who’s working.

  As a fundamentally lazy person, I think that’s all bullshit.

  I arrive just before ten, by which time they are wondering if something’s happened to me. I have a newly prepared corner office made by combining the offices of the head of equities and the head of research – who are now sitting in much smaller offices next to the trading floor, scowling at me. I make a note to fire them.

  I have been given a long-serving secretary, mid-forties, half-German, unmarried, and built like a barn door. Her name is Maria, and she has been with Grossbank in London and Frankfurt for nearly twenty years. She’s definitely a spy, put here to keep an eye on me, and I immediately decide I have to keep her.

  That’s right, I’m going to keep her. Keep her, and use her. She’ll be my back door communication channel to the board. I spend the first day going through formalities, getting my photograph taken, signing endless papers, and meeting the faceless, one-dimensional people who served the old regime.