Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
Time private bankers got professional
It’s hard to imagine that a banker who represents multimillionaires would be anything but professional – but a top executive at a leading global bank thinks that’s precisely the wealth management industry’s problem.
“There is so much mediocrity in the industry we have to raise the bar here,” said Gerard Aquilina, vice chairman of Barclays Wealth, at the Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit in Geneva.
To Aquilina’s way of thinking, private bankers need the same “institutional rigor” as investment bankers in the way they operate. To this end the bank is looking to pursue only top-quality hires.
“Our strategy is not to be the hoover that comes and hires willy-nilly, we want to be much more selective,” said Aquilina — perhaps an ironic view given Barclays acquired thousands of investment bankers from the ashes of the fallen Lehman Brothers last year.
from Global Investing:
Reuters Funds Summit: A financial Chernobyl
The mood in the asset management industry is "very cautious, very realistic but not pessimistic" after the financial industry's "Chernobyl" of Lehman Brothers collapse, according to Europe's fund industry chief.
Peter De Proft, director general of the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) told the Reuters Funds Summit, that the mood was now more optimistic. At least, certainly more so than 
4-5 months ago.
Survival, yes, but what about the money?
Veteran Wall Street banking analyst Richard Bove sees Lehman Brothers surviving – but he doesn’t think they’ll be making a lot of money.
There’s just not a lot of business there at the moment for brokers like Lehman, he told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.
To listen to a clip of what Bove had to say, please click here
