Richard Boath seems to have lots of friends and no enemies.
He is also seen to be a very creative banker. Some say that when he
left Salomon Brother's London office (along with 10 others) in the
spring of 1999, he set off a chain of events that eventually led to
his old firm buying Schroders. "When he left," recalls a former
colleague, "lights started flashing in New York."
One of the reasons that Boath left Salomon was his frustration at
the restrictions on the development of its investment banking.
After he left, Michael Klein and Edward Miller were parachuted into
the London office to sort this out. After a few months Klein
apparently concluded that the firm, part of Citigroup following the
merger of Citibank and Travelers, the owner of Salomon Smith
Barney, was not going to be able to develop a leading European
investment banking business organically. Hence, so...
