Morgan Stanley and Japan’s largest commercial bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, are aiming to create the largest investment bank in Japan, ousting Nomura Holdings from the top spot. The two companies have also agreed to combine their Japanese securities units to form the country’s third largest brokerage unit, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Japan has been somewhat closed to foreign banks who would like to advise companies on marketing products to Japanese households. Whereas large domestic firms such as Nomura had easy access to the $14+ trillion in Japanese household savings through its retail brokerage network. The combined venture by Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi will open up Morgan’s access to that market, according to Walid Chammah, co-president of Morgan Stanley & Co.
Mitsubishi Financial Group (MUFG) is slated to own 60% of the new firm while Morgan Stanley will have a 40% stake.
Finding a job in investment banking right now is no laughing matter. But apparently ABC TV thinks it is, and is trying to build on the angst of the current financial crisis by creating two pilot comedy shows about out-of-work investment bankers.
The first, called Pryors, reportedly includes former Frasier star Kelsey Grammer as a Wall Street exec who has been downsized and forced to spend more time with a family he barely knew during his heady days of deal making. The other pilot, called Canned, is built around a Gen X group of friends who all lost their investment banking jobs on the same day of the downturn, according to an article in the Globe and Mail.
One episode heaps particular scorn on the excesses of Starbucks and its Clover ultra high-end stainless steel coffee machine that was selling for $8,000 just before things went south among the well-healed Wall Street crowd.
Investment bankers and brokers have long been known to circulate some of the wickedest humor on Wall Street. Let’s hope the new show’s writers manage to tap into that talent as well.
Without the lure of huge bonuses for themselves or mega-financing for their clients, many seasoned bankers are moving to smaller firms that value the advisory side of the business, according to Money online.
Smaller banks such as Greenhill, which was involved on the $43 billion Roche-Genetech deal last July, have hired ex-Lehman bankers and launched two new offices. Same for Evercore, which recently hired up to 20 former Lehman, J.P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch bankers to staff its London office.
It seems smaller, independent banks are gaining ground, particularly in the mid-market. Yet even some of the recent mega-deals, such as Warren Buffet’s purchase of 3% of Swiss Re had independents attached.
One reason for their success, claims an industry veteran, is a return to a more personal approach to banking that had fallen by the wayside during the years when the big bulge-bracket megabanks who arranged the financing called the shots.
In today’s environment, with more strategic deals where one company is buying to grow its business, bankers who care more about the long-term quality of the advice they give may come out on top.
