Ian Hannam is someone whose personal brand has benefited, not suffered, from his recent actions. Until recently chairman of global capital markets at JPMorgan Cazenove, he resigned in April after the UK Financial Services’ Authority published its decision that he had been guilty of market abuse.
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| “The FSA may have overreached themselves this time. And if their decision is overturned, a man’s career and livelihood will have been damaged for nothing” |
Hannam is undoubtedly one of the most high profile investment bankers of his generation and has particularly strong client relationships in the mining sector. However his expertise is more general: he is a tenacious and trusted equity capital markets professional. For example, he acted for HSBC when the bank undertook its important rights issue in the dark days of early 2009. The Hannam resignation led to more press column inches than the Diamond bonus. For once it seemed that a banker had both been unfairly treated and done the decent thing by resigning immediately his reputation was impugned.
The Hannam case revolves around some emails that he sent when he was advising Heritage Oil in 2008. Commentators are puzzled by the FSA’s decision because no one traded on the inside information that Hannam communicated to a potential purchaser of Heritage Oil. Moreover, these emails only came to the FSA’s notice because Hannam himself reported an incident of insider trading by another of his clients. The FSA has fined Hannam £450,000 but did not question his honesty or integrity. Hannam will now appeal against the FSA’s verdict to an upper tribunal. However this could take over a year and the tribunal often sides with the FSA on appeals. A compliance specialist at a big investment bank mused: “The FSA may have overreached themselves this time. And if their decision is overturned, a man’s career and livelihood will have been damaged for nothing.” In the meantime, Hannam continues to advise Xstrata on its potential merger with Glencore. The Abigail with attitude column wishes him good luck with his appeal.
