Mapping a route through the Euromarket chaos.
Orion Royal chairman John Abell went pheasant shooting the day after John Langton, head of trading and sales, walked out of the bank with the dollar bond trading desk, to join Security Pacific. These two events were not unrelated. Discontent within the bank about Abell's alleged lack of involvement in the bank's main money-spinner, the capital markets, contributed to Langton's departure.
A few days after the pheasant shoot, it became known that Orion's parent, the Royal Bank of Canada, was not renewing Abell's contract. There had long been a campaign against him, led by deputy chairman William de Gelsey and head of capital markets Joe Cook. Royal Bank could ignore neither complaints from London, nor a report by the management consultant McKinsey, which reportedly said that, without changes in senior management, key deal makers would leave. Abell has declined to speak to Euromoney.
But despite Abell's departure, key deal makers remained discontented. Just before Christmas, Cook left for Morgan Guaranty Limited, and his close friend Michael Webber, syndicate manager, for County Bank. They went because they doubted Royal Bank's long-term commitment to the Euromarkets.
The tale of Orion Royal is a cautionary one for any commercial bank which bids for success in the hothouse world of the Euromarkets.