The Moorgate saga: Herbie goes private

This is the big idea I bring home with me from Washington, private banking, Boot Hill Style, the missing link in our markets, tailored to our customers’ needs but at our price, the last of the old-fashioned margins, boy, we make a mint.

I always fancy the idea, a guy in the Bankers’ Club explains it to me over a second martini, Herbie, he says, just pretend your bank is a Boeing 737, well then, you give some of the customers antimacassars, and metal cutlery instead of plastic, and a complimentary service of domestic champagne, and charge them several times the regular fare, now is that good business or do bears go to the bathroom in the woods?

Until now I never figured out how to apply it to our markets, our clients like their creature comforts but are kinda picky about margins, but it is meetings time again and off I...