The lighter side of awards 2009

The year following a global crisis that saw the financial services landscape permanently redefined was always bound to be one where deal closures were challenging. However, what few predicted was how quickly investment banking in Asia would bounce back and how minor the short-term impact on the region would be.
 
We are not surprised that the shirts, ties, watches and cuff links that we encountered during the pitch season for our 2009 awards were more sober than in 2007, but perhaps a little bolder than last year. And we are not surprised that jokes about remuneration, when they were voiced, were guarded and in hushed tones. With taxpayers around the world up in arms about how much investment bankers stand to earn this year, it's hard to be facetious about the topic.

On the back of a good earnings year, more banks decided to fly people in for the pitches, but on the other hand, more bankers were also called away on sudden business trips, meaning we weren't able to escape the phone pitches and video conferences altogether. But even over the phone it was impossible to miss the excitement of some bankers as they tried to make us understand exactly how good a year they've had or how intriguing a particular deal was. The prize goes to the banker who decided to ignore a fire drill that emptied out the rest of the office while he explained to us, alarm ringing in the background, all the nuances of a transaction that he had worked on. 
 
As always we were impressed with how many ways bankers found to describe the deals they closed. "We led the way where it required intellectual capital," said one banker, explaining why the selection of deals they had closed, which led neither in value nor volume terms, deserved extra brownie points. "Our market share in the meaningful transactions was the highest," was another creative way of expressing the same thought.
 
Bankers also had well-rehearsed answers to why they were missing from certain deals. By now, we expect to hear the defence that the deal was not remunerative, thus not worth being on. But the answers this year spanned a gamut. "We strongly believe it's not the right thing to be all things to all men," said one banker. "We were not backing the wrong horse, we still think it was the right horse," offered another when queried about his bank's choice of clients for a particular M&A deal. One banker chose to downplay a deal he had not been on by noting that "any monkey could have done that trade".

"We got out-banked by people who were better at 'bait-and-switch'," said one banker, explaining why his bank had lost some deals. Indeed, a number of investment banks were criticised for wooing clients through bait-and-switch tactics, promising them something and then once the mandate was in the bag, reneging on that promise. We can only predict that clients are likely to wise-up to such tactics and insist that capital back commitments if it continues. 

The sports analogies that have become an annual feature continued. The "deals off the high dive deserved more credit", we were told. "The client person is the quarterback of the team," explained bankers at another investment bank, which is adopting a client-centric approach. "The quality of the athletes needed to win during the year was different," said another bank. And 'paying to play' was a concept that came up time and again -- especially from the well-capitalised banks.
 
Some bankers brought gadgets to their pitch to make the presentations more real. I'm not sure we were that keen on the memory wafer demonstration, but at least one member of the FinanceAsia team has put a Kindle e-book at the top of the Christmas wish list this year after getting to play around with that nifty little toy during one presentation. (For those of you who are now thinking bribery, we can disclose that the bank that brought the Kindle did not win this particular award and we weren't gifted one!)
 
With respect to M&A deals, the bankers tried to put a positive spin on the deals they did close but in general it was a washout. "The death rate of M&A deals was high," commented one banker. A succinct summing up came from another banker who described M&A as "the year that wasn't".
 
One of the most understated -- yet gracious -- statements this pitch season came from a banker who, after offering a somewhat lengthy spiel on why they deserved an award, conceded that "perhaps our viewpoint is modestly biased". 
 
But the comment that really stood out for us this year was made by a banker who explained why his advice could not be held responsible for the after-market performance of an issue. "I'm responsible for the wedding and not the marriage," he said, shutting the door on any further discussion -- or so he must have hoped.