"The biggest mistake Dick Fuld ever made in his career was not working for Goldman Sachs"
A commentator solves the mystery of why Lehman Brothers went bust
"A bunch of scumbags from Carinthia linking up with a bunch of scumbags from central and eastern Europe to create a disaster"
A bank chief executive pulls no punches in his view of Austria’s Hypo Alpe Adria, nationalized in December
Euromoney: So you say the M&A and equity league tables don’t really reflect the real meat behind the business... where do the majority of your revenues really come from? What is the real money-spinner in your LatAm platform?
Banker: Yes, that’s very true. The real meat and two veg of this platform can only be unmasked when you dig a little deeper than the league tables do ...
A banker seems to have got a bit confused about his metaphors
"Honestly we don’t start with the objective of let’s be number one in the league tables – it just happens! We must be good"
A banker is fittingly modest when asked about his league table position
"It’s very clear even to institutions that have even come out of this pretty well, that there are a bunch of idiots on the same bus, and that whole bus risks being diverted to the asylum. People don’t want that to happen again"
The lead trader at a large London-based investment bank comments on proposed regulation of the OTC derivatives market, and its one-size-fits-all approach in attempting to rein in risk taking