THIS SUMMER, THE head of the European financial institutions group at one of the pre-eminent global investment banks – a veteran adviser on many bank mergers and acquisitions – was having dinner with a group of fund managers. The topic of conversation was not one of his own deals but a smaller transaction – Barclays’ bid for a majority stake in Absa.
Did the fund managers really think, he asked, perhaps just a little mischievously, that it was a good idea for the UK bank to be investing £2.6 billion ($4.6 billion) in a single deal in South Africa?
Their enthusiasm for the deal took him aback. “They absolutely loved it,” he recalls. “And it brought home to me that if a bank management team has credibility, investors are now in the mood to back them to do deals they simply...
