Dave Hart Omnibus

by David Charters

I can barely understand half of what he gives me, and several times fly into a rage, tearing up presentations and throwing them across the room at him.

  What really pisses me off is that he never really reacts. The kids at Bartons used to tremble if a MD let rip at them – they could be fired in a heartbeat, and often were. But Jan has a German employment contract and he’s bullet proof. The only thing I can do to him is make him work, and I go for it with a vengeance, making him stay late every night and work through the weekend, biking round revised drafts to me at home, which I return, unread, with comments like ‘Hopeless’ and ‘No – start again. More detail!’ or ‘Bin this and do it properly – be more concise!’ On Sunday night I call him in the office around ten o’clock.

  ‘Still there, Jan?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Hart.’

  ‘And you haven’t finished?’

  ‘No, Mister Hart.’

  ‘Really, Jan – you can’t be very good, can you?’

  By Monday night he’s exhausted. I stop by his desk, confirm that he’s e-mailed the latest version of the presentation to me and to Frankfurt, and tell him I think he’s useless, unimaginative, bone-idle, and has no future in investment banking.

  Christ, I love my job. Nowhere else in the civilised world could you treat another human being like this and get away with it.

  IT’S TUESDAY morning, and I’m flying to Frankfurt with Paul and Two Livers. He looks like a male model, tall, sleek, not a hair out of place. He’s wearing a conservative, pale blue suit from Brooks Brothers, a white shirt and a dark blue tie from Salvatore Ferragamo. Two Livers looks like Miss World with a brain – pale grey trouser suit from Armani, white collarless blouse that buttons up to the top, with a small gold crucifix around her neck and – get this – no earrings and very little makeup. She’s sipping a bloody Mary, and looks earnest, studious, the kind of woman you’d definitely take seriously, and yet at the same time you’d want to rip her panties off. At least I would. In fact the other night I did, but that’s another story.

  Technically they are both still on ‘gardening leave’ from their old firms, but everyone knows that certain rules are there to be broken, and they’ve already been out hiring people, dealing with head-hunters, ordering new systems and infrastructure, and generally planning the move to a much larger new building in Docklands – our European flagship headquarters, which we’ve labelled the Pleasure Palace, and which will recycle the kind of money that even Frankfurt will notice. They’re energised and excited.

  By comparison I’m dull, grey and depressed. I feel like a condemned man. It’s as if I’ve already been found out, and now I’m going to have to own up that I really shouldn’t be these guys’ boss, more like their bag carrier. They each have more talent and experience in their little finger than I have in my entire body. Gloom and depression start to set in, the black dogs are circling, and I can feel myself sliding into danger.

  In the nick of time, like a life preserver that inflates automatically on hitting the water, my investment banker’s self preservation instinct kicks in. I remind myself that it really doesn’t matter who runs an investment bank, as long as they vaguely look the part. You could pick more or less anyone at random from most trading floors, tell them they’re in charge, and for as long as they didn’t blink, everything would be fine. Achievement doesn’t so much come from effort by management, as the state of the markets, the amount of corporate activity, and whether your firm happens to be around at the right time. This is normal, so don’t panic. I start to feel better.

  We’re sitting in Club Class, which means nothing on these short-haul Euro- pean flights. Every seat is taken by businessmen, bankers, lawyers, accountants, management consultants, the faceless grey masses swarming all over the world’s business centres. The overhead lockers are full, so my briefcase is shoved under the seat in front of me, the hot breakfast smells nauseating, and I know I’m going to get off the flight at the other end looking and feeling sweaty, crumpled and tired. I make a mental note that next on my shopping list has to be a smoker – a private jet like Rory’s. If I survive.

  In Frankfurt we’re met at the airport, whisked into town in a Grossbank limo, and greeted at the bank by Herman and some of his team. They show us into a large auditorium, where after ten minutes or so a couple of hundred middle-aged Germans file in and sit down to stare at us as if we are some kind of exhibit. These are the regional managers, the men who manage the lifeblood of Grossbank, its access to all the hard-working, wealthy citizens who are paying my bonus. They look sceptical, unconvinced, as if they are here on sufferance.

  I take my place on the podium, flanked by Paul and Two Livers. Herman has disappeared – apparently he’s too senior in the German hierarchy to attend this sort of meeting, which makes me even more nervous. One of Herman’s flunkies stands up and starts talking in German, which I don’t understand, except for a reference to ‘Doktor Hart’.

  ‘Doktor Hart’? It’s well known that Germans are a highly educated people, spending far longer than the rest of us at university, and have great reverence for titles – they apparently call it Titelfreude, the joy of titles. It says something about our two nations that in England we have the joy of sex, in Germany the joy of titles. I have no idea if Herman’s flunky knows I don’t have a doctorate, but I make a note for future reference. Over here, this stuff counts.

  The flunky finishes, and indicates that I should step forward to the lectern. There’s a clear plastic idiot board in front of me for me to read my presentation from – or Jan’s presentation, since he wrote it – and a laptop to advance the Powerpoint slides. I went through it all last night: lots of numbers, charts, graphs, organograms, enough to bore the most heavyweight investment banking anorak rigid.

  ‘Gentlemen, good morning.’ A few heads incline in my direction, but otherwise no reaction. I click on the laptop, and the introductory slide appears: ‘Grossbank’s future in investment banking’. I look at the idiot board and read off it. ‘My name is Dave Hart.’ Thanks, Jan – I probably could have managed that one myself. ‘I’m an investment banker. I’m here today to tell you about Grossbank’s exciting plans to go forward into the twenty-first century.’ This is pretty banal, dumb stuff. I don’t recall it from the previous versions. If you don’t grab an audience like this in the first thirty seconds, you’re toast. Click to slide two – ‘One key message’. I read off the idiot board again. ‘I have one key message for you today. If you take away nothing else from this presentation, remember this.’ Click to slide three: ‘You’re on your own, pal.’ I read off the idiot board: ‘You’re on your own, pal.’

  Shit! I click on rapidly, but all the other pages are blank, and nothing’s coming up on the idiot board. I glance across to Paul, but he shrugs his shoulders helplessly. That dumb, fucking kid Jan Hagelmann just committed career suicide. Doesn’t he know I kill people? I’ll wring his fucking neck. I look out at the audience. They are frowning, trying to work out where I’m coming from, what this is leading up to.

  ‘We all are. Every one of us. We come into this world alone and we leave it alone. It’s what we do along the way that defines us.’ I pause and stare out into the middle distance, wondering what the hell to say next. ‘That’s why I’m not going to give you a formal presentation this morning.’ I can’t. I don’t have one. ‘I could tell you how we are going to unleash a tiger in the world’s markets, how this firm’s enormous financial resources are going to be put to work behind the best teams, the finest people in the industry, and how we are going to come from nowhere and sweep the board with our competition. I could bore you endlessly about the business streams we’ve already identified where this firm will be a top-three player within three years. I could show you projections for the obscene profits that will be thrown off by the great financial engine that we will create.’ I need to change tack fast, because some of them are whispering to each other, probably wondering what I am going to tell them. Maybe if they have any ideas, they could share them w
ith me. ‘I could tell you all of that, and it’s all true.’ Yes, honestly. ‘But it won’t happen overnight. It will require patience and forbearance and enormous investment, and still it won’t be easy. But life isn’t meant to be easy. Life is about challenges, and you face those challenges best with friends and comrades alongside you.’ I could add that there is no comradeship quite like that created by millions of pounds of guaranteed bonuses, but these people get paid peanuts, so I don’t. ‘So I’m going to talk to you instead about people. Our people. The real people inside these suits.’ What the hell can I say next? That the ‘real’ us are driven by shallow, materialistic greed and alcohol and drugfuelled lust? That we’d sell our soul for a bigger package, say 4 x 4?

  I point to Two Livers. ‘You will come to know my colleague, Doktor MacKay, over the coming years as someone who is constantly pressing you for introductions to corporate clients in your regions for potential investment banking business. You’ll think her a dragon, a demon in woman’s clothing, who is constantly demanding more.’ Though not quite the way she was demanding more from me the other night. ‘But on Sunday mornings you would see a very different Doktor MacKay. On Sunday mornings you’d find her on her knees…’ Preferably kneeling at my feet, and you can guess what she’d be doing. ‘…Doktor MacKay is a lay preacher.’ She can certainly get preachy after she gets laid, especially on the subject of senior management incentives.

  I glance to my right. Bang on cue, Two Livers touches her crucifix, then looks down modestly at the desk in front of her and tilts her head to one side. She looks like an angel. I could kiss her… at least.

  ‘Paul…’ I gesture towards Paul, sitting behind me on the other side. ‘…Paul is gay.’ I pause meaningfully for this news to be absorbed around the room. The great thing about Germans is that they are on the whole very liberal-minded – they have this huge tolerance thing, which has come to be an article of faith among the educated classes. ‘Paul knows what it’s like to be alone. He knows what it’s like to suffer because you’re different. During the week, Paul will be a demon of the markets, but at weekends he spends his time counselling young men.’ Generally after he’s shagged them. ‘He doesn’t talk about what he does at weekends.’ You wouldn’t, would you? ‘But he’s as driven by what he does out of hours as what he does during the working day.’ A fucking sex maniac, from what I’ve heard.

  I can feel a change in the room. This isn’t what they expected. Weakness, vulnerability, concern for one’s fellow man, coming from investment bankers? Nah, get out of here. But I can sense that I’ve got them.

  ‘Some of you may have heard wildly exaggerated rumours, tittle-tattle really, about my alleged salary and bonus package. I’m not going to dignify those rumours with a comment.’ Mainly because they fall well short of the truth. ‘But let me assure you of one thing. Half of everything I actually do earn goes to good causes. Not ten per cent, as some religions require, certainly not the few per cent that many of you voluntarily pay in church taxes. Half goes to good causes.’ Fucking good causes. Like women’s causes in Eastern Europe and Latin America. In fact I’m spending so much of my after tax income on these good causes that even on my enormous package I’ll soon have to slow down.

  ‘Remember the words of that truly great philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, that he who dies rich, dies disgraced. It’s who we are that matters, and how we live our lives. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about today.’ I search for something really fatuous to wind up with. ‘Gentlemen, we’re not alone. We’re all in this together with our values and our beliefs – one dream, one team, one firm.’ I clench my fist and wave it in the air. ‘Grossbank rocks! Thank you.’

  Phew, now I can go and kill Hagelmann. I pause, waiting for some polite applause. But then the strangest thing happens. The guys in the audience start banging the tables in front of them. What is this, a riot? Are they going to start throwing things? I turn to Two Livers and Paul. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  We rush to the exit, trying to ignore the ever louder banging behind us, and Herman’s flunky hurries after us. When we get outside, I turn on him, furious. ‘Do you have their names?’

  ‘Y – yes, of course.’

  ‘Good. Fire everyone in the room.’

  ‘Wh – why? They liked you. They loved you. That’s why you got this response. I’ve never known it before.’

  ‘You mean…’ I do an impression of a fist banging a table.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. That’s what I thought. So what I want you to do is fire everyone off a message from me, saying how much I enjoyed meeting them, but this is only the beginning. I want me and my team to spend much more time really getting to know all of them. Fire them all off something like that straight away.’

  As Paul and Two Livers fall in behind me to take the lift to the fifty-fourth floor, both of them goose me. I grin. The A-Team.

  DOKTOR BIEDERMANN looks like the villain Blofeld in the Bond movies. Bald, bespectacled rather than wearing a monocle, but with the same slow, deliberate movements. All he lacks is a cat sitting in his lap to stroke.

  I’m sitting in his office with Herman, around a coffee table well away from his huge power desk. Paul and Two Livers have had to wait outside – some sort of German hierarchy thing. The wall to one side is what the Americans call a ‘Me Wall’. I didn’t know the Germans went in for this, but since I’m meant to look at it, I do. There are photographs of Biedermann with the German Chancellor and President, and various dignitaries that I’m sure I should recognise, but don’t. There’s a set of shelves with various Lucite deal tombstones, family photos, and some interesting objets – highly appropriate fossils, which presumably he’s collected himself, and some spectacular quartz crystals. I check out the family photos and do a double take when I see a shot of a family group and spot a familiar face. I turn to Biedermann.

  ‘Isn’t this…?’

  ‘Yes. My nephew, Jan Hagelmann. I understand he helped you prepare your presentation today, which was so successful.’

  Fuck. Jan the dead man. I was already fantasising about the torture I would put him through before setting him up for an exit that even a German employment contract couldn’t stop. ‘Yes. He’s brilliant. Wasted in London, but brilliant, nonetheless.’ It’s bad enough having Maria reporting back to Frankfurt on me, without Biedermann’s personal spy as well.

  ‘Wasted in London? Surely not. I thought London was where the action is.’ Biedermann looks across to Herman, who for once seems less sure of his ground.

  ‘Doktor Biedermann, we need bright people everywhere, and most of all here in Germany, where our franchise is strongest. Someone with Jan’s talent should be here, at the sharp end, showing by example what can be achieved.’

  Herman looks briefly grateful. ‘How would you use him here in Germany?’

  ‘Leave that to me. I’ve had it in mind from the outset to put really bright, sharp young Germans into the field, somewhere relatively small, but where they can have a big impact.’

  Biedermann and Herman are both nodding. ‘Good. We’ll follow this with interest.’

  We are briefly interrupted by the arrival of two more fossils in the room. Both come in, shake hands, mutter their names, which I instantly forget – apparently they are members of the supervisory board, which sits above the management board, and is even more fossilised.

  Biedermann leans back in his chair and forms a bridge with his hands, savouring the moment. ‘So, Mister Hart.’ It’s that Titelfreude thing again. ‘I know it’s still early in your time at Grossbank, but some of us…’ He looks at the two fossils, who nod their heads wisely, avoiding eye contact with Herman and me. ‘…some of us feel that it is important to take stock of the direction in which the London operation is heading. To us it seems that so far, all we have achieved is to fire our existing people – people of long service and great loyalty – spend vast sums hiring expensive people from other firms, announce grandiose schemes for a new building, which w
ill cost us further millions, and we have yet to see a concrete business plan for the board to approve.’ He leans forward, fixing first Herman, and then me, with a stare. ‘Or am I wrong?’

  There’s clearly a power play going on here between the old guard and the new. The old guard probably liked the bank the way it was: rich, successful and secure. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. The new guard are bored, greedy, and envious of their British and American peers. They want a new train set. It’s clear whose side I’m on.

  When Herman doesn’t respond, I take it as my cue.

  ‘Gentlemen, the reason I haven’t presented a detailed business plan is obvious.’

  They all look at me, and even Herman seems puzzled.

  ‘We don’t have one.’

  Herman looks horrified, and the others sit back smugly, an ugly grin spreading over Biedermann’s twisted features.

  ‘If we did have one, I’d have to ask you to fire me.’

  ‘What?’ Now they’re really puzzled.

  ‘If at this juncture, I was tying the bank’s future to a specific, single plan, no matter how well devised, I’d be dumb and you’d have to fire me.’

  Biedermann is nodding. He’s looking forward to firing me. Didn’t think it would happen quite this soon, but he’s relishing the prospect.

  ‘Gentlemen, there’s a saying in English that goes back to the early dawn of warfare: no general’s plan ever survived the first shot of battle. We could come up with a plan, sure we could. We could hire management consultants and have long navel-gazing sessions, playing games of fantasy investment banking until the cows come home. But we’d get nowhere. Analysis paralysis. Or we can be like the Special Forces. Parachute into the jungle with a crack team, an unbeatable team and win! Someone far older and wiser than me once said of strategy in investment banking that the only point in having one is so that at year-end you know what you’ve departed from. I can’t tell you what markets are going to do, or rates, or what sort of corporate activity will occur over the next twelve months. We can guess, we can speculate, we can make predictions, but ultimately we have to create a team, a business, that is flexible, responsive, pragmatic. They say elephants don’t sprint, but this elephant will dance and sprint!’ I tap the table top with my finger. ‘Gentlemen, our plan is not to have a plan! We’ll assemble the best of the best, equip them with state of the art systems, put the weight of the bank’s capital behind them, and then sound the bugles and charge.’