From bust banks to bonkbuster
The financial and literary worlds make strong bedfellows. Both are replete with people with big egos and the ability to make things up. Strangely, though, very few bankers have made a big impression as authors.
Marcus Fedder, formerly of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Toronto Dominion Bank, is the latest to try his luck. Fedder has just released his first novel, Sarabande, which, according to a press release, “is a gripping love story in which the ties of family and homeland conflict with the desire to forge a new life and direction”.
Set against a background of war, the script is written in a unique movie style “that makes the scenes easily visualized and plants the reader firmly in the forefront of the action”.
The release concludes: “Marcus’s storytelling brings out important issues about the consequences of war in a time that is filled with wars that have ripped apart the Middle East.” All well and good, except that the book is set in Sarajevo.
Still, after such a rousing sales pitch book stores are probably on red alert for extra copies. Just in case it isn’t, however, Fedder continues to make a living in the financial industry as a partner in a hedge fund. “Having spent over 20 years in international banking Marcus Fedder is a wealth of knowledge,” adds the release.
So what does the encyclopaedic Fedder make of the financial crisis? “It is very clear we are entering a world – at least for the next few years – which is far less complex, where leverage will be frowned upon, where big bonuses are a thing of the past.”
He concludes: “The financial system of the last 10 years is over.”
Really?
Let’s hope his novel displays a tad more imagination and original thought.
