DAVOS, Jan 26 (Reuters) – Bankers feel under siege, and from the heights of Davos in the Swiss Alps they are looking to convince the world that they have a role to play in getting economies back on their feet.

Their banks need growth, for without it the outlook for many is still grim, particularly in Europe where the euro zone debt crisis has resulted in bailouts, a retreat from lending, job cuts and government pressure to refocus their business.

Once the darlings of Davos, bank chief executives at this year’s gathering are keeping a fairly low profile. Some, such as the chief executives of Italy’s UniCredit and nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland, have given it a miss altogether. UniCredit’s Federico Ghizzoni is attempting to raise 7.5 billion euros in capital to meet regulatory demands, while Stephen Hester is dismantling the British bank’s investment banking arm.

For those who made it to the Swiss ski resort, including top executives at JP Morgan, Citigroup, HSBC and Barclays, there are back-to-back meetings. They are advising corporate clients, meeting potential investors, testing the economic pulse or seeking to persuade governments and regulators to loosen the regulatory vice, which was tightened in response to 2008′s financial crisis.

The few who have chosen to speak out say they need to win over a sceptical public, also stressing the need for their services if economies are going to grow.

“We should all recommit ourselves to a robust financial system, a system that balances safety and soundness on one hand but also addresses the need for growth,” Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit said.

“It is important for the financial system to recognise there is a great deal of anger that is directed at it for the crisis, and trust has been broken and we’ve got to start addressing that,” Pandit said, adding banks must “serve clients and not themselves”.

LONDON (Reuters) – Former Olympus Corp head Michael Woodford is close to releasing names of an alternative slate of directors for the board of the company, he told Reuters in an interview, as he fights to return at the helm of the company.

Woodford, who won a battle to force his former employer to admit to more than a decade of accounting fraud, said he was confident that there would be an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders within the next three months.

“We are very close to being in a position to release our names, an alternative slate of directors,” Woodford told Reuters by telephone, adding that the list included “credible” Japanese figures to lead the maker of cameras and medical equipment.

“We will have an EGM very shortly, within the next three months, and I will be campaigning hard for a slate (of directors) I believe will win,” Woodford said.

The company is preparing to issue about $1.28 billion (100 billion yen) in new shares, the Nikkei business daily reported, to bolster its depleted finances.

But Woodford said there was no need for rash decisions.

“I agree that the balance sheet needs to be strengthened but I know that we have cash for the next couple of years. We don’t have to rush,” Woodford said.

LONDON (Reuters) – Tim Wise has a complex balancing act to pull off as he steps onto the public stage as head of JPMorgan Cazenove, the new face of a venerable British broker and adviser prized for the discretion of its bankers.

Wise took over last month as chairman from David Mayhew, one of the City of London’s best known and yet most intensely private bankers. A corporate finance specialist, Wise has until now kept a low profile, known only to clients, colleagues and peers.

Even as chairman, the 50-year-old cricket fan and keen cook still intends to spend much of his time behind the scenes, with a focus on advising his British corporate customers.

But Wise is also acutely aware he has to move Cazenove beyond the era of veteran Mayhew, who, after 10 years in the top job and more than 40 at the firm, was virtually synonymous with the business. Mayhew, 71, becomes vice chairman of JPMorgan’s global investment bank where he will focus on advising clients.

Cazenove, the quintessential blue-blooded British bank known as the Queen’s broker, evolved relatively quickly in recent years under Mayhew, most notably through its takeover by U.S. investment bank JPMorgan in 2009.

A partnership for most of its nearly 190-year history, until it became incorporated in 2001, it had a member of the original Cazenove family working at the firm until 2004. That’s when Mayhew engineered the initial joint venture with JPMorgan — an even older firm, whose earliest predecessor was established in 1799.

“One of the great myths (about Cazenove) is that we are an ossified business with a traditional group of broking clients that have been here since the 18th century,” said Wise, groomed as Mayhew’s heir throughout 2011 after 12 years at the firm.

LONDON, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Tim Wise has a complex balancing act to pull off as he steps onto the public stage as head of JPMorgan Cazenove (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the new face of a venerable British broker and adviser prized for the discretion of its bankers.

Wise took over last month as chairman from David Mayhew, one of the City of London’s best known and yet most intensely private bankers. A corporate finance specialist, Wise has until now kept a low profile, known only to clients, colleagues and peers.

Even as chairman, the 50-year-old cricket fan and keen cook still intends to spend much of his time behind the scenes, with a focus on advising his British corporate customers.

But Wise is also acutely aware he has to move Cazenove beyond the era of veteran Mayhew, who, after 10 years in the top job and more than 40 at the firm, was virtually synonymous with the business. Mayhew, 71, becomes vice chairman of JPMorgan’s global investment bank where he will focus on advising clients.

Cazenove, the quintessential blue-blooded British bank known as the Queen’s broker, evolved relatively quickly in recent years under Mayhew, most notably through its takeover by U.S. investment bank JPMorgan in 2009.

A partnership for most of its nearly 190-year history, until it became incorporated in 2001, it had a member of the original Cazenove family working at the firm until 2004. That’s when Mayhew engineered the initial joint venture with JPMorgan — an even older firm, whose earliest predecessor was established in 1799.

“One of the great myths (about Cazenove) is that we are an ossified business with a traditional group of broking clients that have been here since the 18th century,” said Wise, groomed as Mayhew’s heir throughout 2011 after 12 years at the firm.

LONDON, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Tim Wise has a complex balancing act to pull off as he steps onto the public stage as head of JPMorgan Cazenove (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the new face of a venerable British broker and adviser prized for the discretion of its bankers.

Wise took over last month as chairman from David Mayhew, one of the City of London’s best known and yet most intensely private bankers. A corporate finance specialist, Wise has until now kept a low profile, known only to clients, colleagues and peers.

Even as chairman, the 50-year-old cricket fan and keen cook still intends to spend much of his time behind the scenes, with a focus on advising his British corporate customers.

But Wise is also acutely aware he has to move Cazenove beyond the era of veteran Mayhew, who, after 10 years in the top job and more than 40 at the firm, was virtually synonymous with the business. Mayhew, 71, becomes vice chairman of JPMorgan’s global investment bank where he will focus on advising clients.

Cazenove, the quintessential blue-blooded British bank known as the Queen’s broker, evolved relatively quickly in recent years under Mayhew, most notably through its takeover by U.S. investment bank JPMorgan in 2009.

A partnership for most of its nearly 190-year history, until it became incorporated in 2001, it had a member of the original Cazenove family working at the firm until 2004. That’s when Mayhew engineered the initial joint venture with JPMorgan — an even older firm, whose earliest predecessor was established in 1799.

“One of the great myths (about Cazenove) is that we are an ossified business with a traditional group of broking clients that have been here since the 18th century,” said Wise, groomed as Mayhew’s heir throughout 2011 after 12 years at the firm.

TOKYO/LONDON (Reuters) – The sacked chief executive of Japan’s disgraced Olympus Corp (7733.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) says he has accepted an invitation to attend its board meeting this week, in what could be a hopeful sign for investors who want him to return and lead a clean-up of the firm.

Olympus, a maker of cameras and medical equipment, has been engulfed by an accounting scandal and is under investigation by regulators, prosecutors and also organized-crime police. The scandal broke when CEO-turned-whistleblower Michael Woodford publicly questioned its accounts after his sacking last month.

“I was invited to the board meeting on Friday by Olympus and welcome the opportunity of going to Japan,” Woodford, a Briton, told Reuters in London on the eve of his departure for Tokyo, his first trip back to Olympus headquarters since his sacking at a board meeting just over five weeks ago.

Woodford has been cast by two major foreign shareholders as the best man to lead a clean-up of Olympus, which has lost about 70 percent of its market value since he went public with his concerns of improper accounting at the 92-year-old firm.

Olympus, which initially flatly denied any wrongdoing, has since admitted to hiding investment losses from investors for two decades and to using some of $1.3 billion in unusual merger and acquisition payments to help in the cover-up.

But a third-party panel appointed by the company to look into the accounting scandal has, so far, found no evidence that funds from its M&A deals went to organized crime syndicates or that “yakuza” gangsters were involved. The panel’s report is due in early December.

Woodford has cited unspecified security concerns for his decision to leave Japan in a hurry after he was sacked, but said on Monday he was now comfortable to return and reiterated his willingness to “go back and run” the company.

LONDON (Reuters) – German travel group TUI AG is going where the world’s biggest financial firms have yet to venture.

It has decided to protect itself from the risk that Greece could leave the euro zone by asking Greek hoteliers to sign new contracts which would apply if this were to happen.

While other companies have thought about how to deal with the ramifications of what, until recently, was dismissed as a virtual impossibility by politicians and European Union bureaucrats, few have taken steps to protect themselves.

Even now, after Germany and France have raised the possibility of a country leaving the euro, most European firms are unwilling to talk publicly about their strategy in the event of the exit of one country or a break-up.

“We have discussed it at board meetings. But each time we have reached the same point and had to stop. There’s no mechanism for an exit,” the head of one large pan-European construction company told Reuters.

Investment bankers say they have run their own models for what might happen if the euro zone disintegrated.

And a senior banker at one major U.S. firm said it had taken the decision to cut all its own euro positions down to a minimum to reduce the risks, highlighting derivative positions as potentially the most problematic in the event of a break-up of the single currency bloc.

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) – German travel group TUI AG is going where the world’s biggest financial firms have yet to venture.

It has decided to protect itself from the risk that Greece could leave the euro zone by asking Greek hoteliers to sign new contracts which would apply if this were to happen.

While other companies have thought about how to deal with the ramifications of what, until recently, was dismissed as a virtual impossibility by politicians and European Union bureaucrats, few have taken steps to protect themselves.

Even now, after Germany and France have raised the possibility of a country leaving the euro, most European firms are unwilling to talk publicly about their strategy in the event of the exit of one country or a break-up.

“We have discussed it at board meetings. But each time we have reached the same point and had to stop. There’s no mechanism for an exit,” the head of one large pan-European construction company told Reuters.

Investment bankers say they have run their own models for what might happen if the euro zone disintegrated.

And a senior banker at one major U.S. firm said it had taken the decision to cut all its own euro positions down to a minimum to reduce the risks, highlighting derivative positions as potentially the most problematic in the event of a break-up of the single currency bloc.

LONDON (Reuters) – Michael Woodford makes an unlikely fighter.

As he tucks his tie into his shirt and digs into a plate of Dover sole in a London restaurant, it’s hard to imagine that this down-to-earth 51-year-old Englishman is at war with one of Japan’s biggest corporations.

Woodford is taking on the leaders of Olympus Corp., one of Japan’s most venerable camera makers. He was made CEO of the company in early October. But two weeks later, on October 14, the board sacked him for what chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said was Woodford’s failure to understand the company’s management style and Japanese culture.

Woodford says he was dismissed for questioning a series of odd-looking deals and hefty payments the company had made over the past half decade, including the biggest mergers and acquisitions fee ever.

Revelations about the payments have now forced Woodford to flee Japan, led Kikukawa to resign, wiped around $4 billion off Olympus’ market value and prompted law enforcement agencies in Japan and the United States to investigate the firm. Sources in Japan have told Reuters the country’s securities watchdog is probing Olympus’ takeover deals, focusing on whether it properly disclosed relevant information. The head of Tokyo’s stock exchange says the company may face shareholder suits if it does not produce a truly independent investigation into how the acquisitions were accounted for.

Unanswered questions about the payments have also spurred speculation that Japan’s Yakuza crime syndicates — which a Japanese magazine euphemistically described as “anti-social forces” — could be involved.

Olympus said there was nothing improper about the payments and denies any link to “anti-social forces”. At a news conference on October 26 to discuss his resignation, 70-year-old Kikukawa said he needed to leave “to restore confidence in the company under the new management”. Olympus was clean, he said. Woodford was guilty of his own power grab and sacked because of “his autocratic actions, and these included intimidation of my own staff”.

LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) – Michael Woodford makes an unlikely fighter.

As he tucks his tie into his shirt and digs into a plate of Dover sole in a London restaurant, it’s hard to imagine that this down-to-earth 51-year-old Englishman is at war with one of Japan’s biggest corporations.

Woodford is taking on the leaders of Olympus Corp., one of Japan’s most venerable camera makers. He was made CEO of the company in early October. But two weeks later, on Oct. 14, the board sacked him for what chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said was Woodford’s failure to understand the company’s management style and Japanese culture.

Woodford says he was dismissed for questioning a series of odd-looking deals and hefty payments the company had made over the past half decade, including the biggest mergers and acquisitions fee ever.

Revelations about the payments have now forced Woodford to flee Japan, led Kikukawa to resign, wiped around $4 billion off Olympus’ market value and prompted law enforcement agencies in Japan and the United States to investigate the firm. Sources in Japan have told Reuters the country’s securities watchdog is probing Olympus’ takeover deals, focusing on whether it properly disclosed relevant information. The head of Tokyo’s stock exchange says the company may face shareholder suits if it does not produce a truly independent investigation into how the acquisitions were accounted for.

Unanswered questions about the payments have also spurred speculation that Japan’s Yakuza crime syndicates — which a Japanese magazine euphemistically described as “anti-social forces” — could be involved.

Olympus said there was nothing improper about the payments and denies any link to “anti-social forces”. At a news conference on Oct. 26 to discuss his resignation, 70-year-old Kikukawa said he needed to leave “to restore confidence in the company under the new management”. Olympus was clean, he said. Woodford was guilty of his own power grab and sacked because of “his autocratic actions, and these included intimidation of my own staff”.