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Robert Mohamed Snap out of that slumber. Ask any good executive recruiter which are the hottest job areas at the Euromarkets. Salesmen are out. Syndicate wizards are yesterday’s men. Equity analysts are passé. The in-people are proprietary traders and credit researchers and documentation specialists. That’s good news for Robert Mohamed, 35, who heads the transaction-management group at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. He found his feet after dmg recruited fixed-income supremo Edson Mitchell and his New York associate Grant Kvalheim. Previously they were all colleagues at Merrill Lynch. Mohamed had joined Merrill in 1989 and was persuaded to move to dmg by Abigail Hofman, who then defected to bzw as head of global origination this summer. Why did Mohamed leave Merrill Lynch, the supreme international fixed-income house for new issues? Some disenchantment may have come from working with the feisty and demanding John McNiven who ran the international capital markets group with great success before leaving for Hong Kong to take over Merrill’s Asian operations. But Mohamed has absolutely no regrets about his days at Merrill, and the move to dmg offered him a chance to continue working with Edson Mitchell and Grant Kvalheim, both of whom he admires. “dmg is a world-class investment bank and Edson is a true visionary in a market where such people are rare the combination was irresistible,” he says. What makes a good documentation specialist? Is it necessary to have a legal background? Mohamed considers that attention to detail, a logical eye and business acumen are the prerequisites. Although documentation specialists at rival houses are often lawyers, others come from commercial banking and accountancy. Mohamed himself was attracted to the documentation side of the Euromarkets when he completed a credit training programme with Chase Manhattan. Although he plays down the complexities of the job, the rapid development of new structures provides a constant intellectual challenge, usually to a tight schedule. Surprisingly, the wave of recent securitizations has made his work only slightly more complicated. “The main losers will be the forests which have to be cut down to provide all of that extra paper,” he says. Most people would find the preparation of new-issue documents daunting enough but then there is the client-relationship factor, which can be extremely sensitive. When mandates have been awarded and the successful originators have flown off in a salvo of popping champagne corks to chase the next deal, the documentation specialists tie up the loose ends and ensure a smooth market launch. This involves close cooperation with the issuer’s legal advisers and accountants. Any disagreement during this period may sour a relationship with the borrower and prejudice repeat business. Small wonder that the top mandate-getters value their documentation teams, or that the logical progression for a documentation expert is towards origination. Will Mohamed eventually move that way? It’s a possibility and after five years at Merrill Lynch and two at dmg he clearly has well-established connections with many of the world’s most important borrowers. He currently also heads emtn origination at dmg in London. But for the time being he’s simply too busy making sure that his part of the Edson Mitchell capital markets machine runs like clockwork. Since joining dmg he has increased his team from two to seven. With the job market for documentation specialists booming, is Mohamed himself having to fend off interested parties? He couldn’t be drawn but the Edson Mitchell factor alone would probably be too strong to prise him away. However, there have been rumours of some major continental Europeans waiting in the wings that are looking to bolster their own documentation capabilities. Then there’s Abby Hofman in expanding mood at bzw and beginning to call up some of her old friends. Weekend callers should be aware of Mohamed’s sporting activities. At the height of his rugby career he was good enough to play for Wasps second xv at full-back. However, his first love is cricket. He plays almost every weekend during the season for a team organized by his father in Harrow. dmg’s star originators will be hoping that he continues to carry his bat for the home team and hits all googlies bowled by the opposition far over the sight screen. Robert GrayChairman, HSBC Markets There were two key appointments in the Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation (hsbc) group last month. One was the long-overdue promotion of Robert Gray. The other was the eye-catching hiring of Joan Beck (see below). What do these appointments signal to the market? Could it be that hsbc is finally waking up? Up the ladder and into the chairman’s office at hsbc Markets goes Robert Gray, the highly regarded Euromarket banker who is also vice-chairman of the International Primary Market Association. Gray and three senior colleagues came from jp Morgan three years ago in a blaze of publicity about sky-high salaries that seemed at odds with the bank’s well-known aversion to extravagance. Expectations on both sides were high. Gray and his team would introduce jp Morgan-style efficiency and order into hsbc Markets’ loose-knit (some have unkindly called it chaotic) corporate structure of individual fiefdoms. All he had to do was to make Samuel Montagu, James Capel, Midland Montagu, Trinkaus & Burkhardt in Düsseldorf and Wardley Limited in Hong Kong work together as a team. Sounds easy? Don’t you believe it. Gray found that hsbc’s separate business units didn’t always want to work together and through their separate memberships of the International Securities Market Association (Isma) were sometimes competing with each other. Overdue changes Gray says integration is in its final stages but progress has been much slower than expected. He himself has been the subject of internal resentment from colleagues who are envious of the amount he earns and are impatient for better results. Poor bonuses last year caused considerable unrest, particularly as one of Gray’s imported jp Morgan traders had incurred substantial losses. Was Gray so frustrated by the hsbc internal corporate mishmash that he threatened to leave? Certainly abn Amro or Salomon Brothers would have fallen over themselves to recruit him. Friends in the hsbc Group say that he had an impressive sounding title but little real power. But Stephen Green, the head of global treasury and capital markets, was shrewd enough to see that he was the one person with the authority and vision to make hsbc Markets into a Euromarket powerhouse and that he was intellectually streets ahead of any of the Samuel Montagu or James Capel old guard. As chairman, Gray now has the title and the power to make long-overdue changes. Can we expect culling of the hsbc veterans and some expensive hirings? Even with his new authority, Gray faces an uphill struggle. It hasn’t been a good year for hsbc Markets in the primary league tables, where the bank ranks fifteenth. That’s two places behind bzw with which there is strong rivalry to be the premier uk Euromarket house. In 1995 hsbc Markets had finished well ahead of bzw. Another irritation was that bzw was selected to be the book-runner for the coveted $2 billion sovereign frn mandate for the uk in early October. This was a prize Gray and hsbc Markets badly wanted to win a small consolation was that the bank was a joint lead. Gray will have his sights on bzw in 1997 but how does he feel about the Euromarket success of his former colleagues at jp Morgan? When he and his team left there was speculation that Gray’s success would be measured by his performance against jp Morgan. To date it has been an uneven contest. jp Morgan ranks fifth in the Euromarket new-issue league tables and its primary volume of $27 billion is more than double hsbc Markets’ $12.6 billion. Gray is under no illusions about jp Morgan. “It is a great franchise with very good people,” he says. bzw is more within his immediate reach but even overtaking this uk rival is no longer a soft touch. Robert Diamond is now in charge and offering big money to attract top-quality traders, salesmen and investment bankers. Gray knows he must increase his penetration of the big-ticket business, including global bonds, sovereigns, supranationals and frequent borrowers. That is why he recently recruited Paul Morganti, the originator of several of Daiwa Securities’ largest and most successful issues and that house’s key contact man with the Republic of Italy. Friends don’t envy Gray’s task. “hsbc Markets is still a hotch-potch of disparate businesses and there’s more dead wood in there than the Florida Everglades,” says a former colleague. Joan Beck
Vice-chairman, When Joan Beck, hsbc Investment Bank’s new vice-chairman, parted company with mc Securities (now mc-bbl) and his former csfb friend and colleague Hans-Joerg Rudloff, there were rumours that the 49-year-old might go into semi-retirement. The mc Securities experience had not always been harmonious and may have left him disenchanted with niche investment banking. Beck was a big-picture banker and deal-maker after successful careers at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and finally csfb, where he rose to be vice-chairman. Favourable share option incentives at Morgan Stanley and csfb had provided enviable financial independence. Those who knew him well were not convinced he would step into the shadows. Beck is notoriously restless, never happier than when heading off to an airport to catch yet another plane. At csfb his air miles were surpassed only by David Mulford, and colleagues spoke admiringly of his ability to get off intercontinental flights and go straight into either a pricing meeting or the nearest equivalent of his favourite London nightclub, Annabel’s. Beck still can’t get away from the playboy image. Always one of the best-dressed international investment bankers, he has the natural confidence that comes with a successful career and the ability to speak more than half a dozen languages fluently. His close friend Peter Ogden, a former top Morgan Stanley investment banker, now chairman of Computacenter, is considered to be a ladies’ man himself, as well as looking as if he stepped straight out of the pages of gq magazine. But Ogden defers to Beck’s charm. “The standing joke among Joan’s friends was that they always invited him to walk first into a cocktail party, bar or nightclub. When he had sat down at a table surrounded by new admirers we were able to impress those whom he had not invited simply by saying that we knew him.” Jack of all trades However, think beyond the whirr of paparazzi motor-winds. Beck has a career statement to make, especially after the troubled waters of mc Securities. That chapter is over and forgotten and he sees a new challenge at hsbc Investment Bank. Like Robert Gray, Beck knows that it’s uphill all the way. Beck made his name and his reputation in the golden days of Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston in debt capital markets. His forte is the fixed-income market, although csfb friends say that he had become an exceptional jack-of-all-trades banker who could bring home every type of mandate. “Clients liked Joan so much, and he was so persuasive, that if they weren’t in need of debt financing he came away with some m&a or advisory work he rarely returned empty-handed,” says a former csfb investment banker. These all-round skills may stand Beck in good stead at hsbc Investment Bank because the debt capital markets, which was his favourite bailiwick, is not his responsibility that’s Robert Gray’s. Beck must make his mark in equities, equity ipos and equity privatizations. According to a former hsbc insider, it would seem that he has been asked to carry hsbc Investment Bank’s international equity flag, which had been dropped by Samuel Montagu and James Capel. Montagu has fallen out of contention and Capel has some secondary distribution and a valuable research franchise. “Now all he has to do is to take those and bring in a mandate such as Orange, eni, Wellcome or Gazprom,” says an equity syndicate manager at a major Swiss bank. Don’t dismiss Beck lightly, even if the obstacles ahead seem like being in the Himalayas and looking up at k2. The decision to bring him into the bank was bold. Chief executive Keith Harris concedes that “some experience was needed to balance our younger investment bankers”. However, experience is all very well. Beck’s performance will be measured by results. The fact that hsbc Investment Bank’s record in, say, international equity ipos has been so dismal may even be a plus for Beck’s initial business targets. “A base of near zero is the perfect starting point,” says a friend who has known Beck since his early days at Merrill Lynch. * |
