April 2, 2008
In praise of Frankfurt
What a pleasure it was to attend a conference on sovereign wealth funds today at the magnificent Palais d’Egmont in Brussels. There we were, listening to a prominent Kuwaiti banker as he described the activities of the Kuwaiti Investment Authority, often regarded as the oldest sovereign fund of them all.
All of a sudden, a French participant livened things up by asking why the Kuwaitis, when they set up shop back in the 1950s, had chosen London rather than some other foreign city as their base. Smooth as silk, the Kuwaiti replied that, well, after all, as a top banker you needed to be in a city “where you can have some fun … not like Frankfurt, for example.”
Quick as a flash the French lady retorted: “What about Paris?”
What about Paris indeed, I thought, my heart racing.
But since I was moderating the discussion, I decided to put in a word for Frankfurt, surely the most mocked financial capital in European history (mocked, of course, not as a business location but for being far too dull for energetic young bond salesmen, equity analysts and other whizz kids of our times).
I had spent four years in Frankfurt for the FT, I recalled, and there was no way I would forget all the fun I had enjoyed there. Yes, sirree. It was on April 10.
Re Fun in Frankfurt. It was Goethe (a Frankfurter) who said “Life is not a matter of doing what you enjoy doing, but enjoying what you HAVE to do”. However it has been very profitable fun in the last 4/5 years buying German shares - eine tolle Zeit!
Posted by: jj | April 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 am | Report this commentFrankfurt’s work ethics may come in handy now that new fabricated scandals are brewing in the USA blogs and newsgroups:
1) the French Stock Market Regulator Investigation over EADS-Airbus executives possible stock insider trading is feeding some politicians and Lobby’s to ask Congress to terminate the new Northrop-EADS Tanker for the USA Air Force deal , and the gossip is that the neocons will use that excuse to remove the executives and install their own neocon team in EADS, what a scoop for the neocons, taking over Airbus and passing the deal to their Lobby, a double hit, amazing ! , will they succeed? , will the christian Europeans fall for the trick?
b) Glad to see your great newspaper,FT, sending you around the world, but today the Financial Times stockholders and Board must tackle a difficult one: News Corp. and the Wall Street Journal are starting to move on Europe’s FT territory,and since many neocons in the WSJ and in the FT are from the same ideological and political group with the same goals and work together for their faith and country, will the FT Board make a move ? or will they let the WSJ team undermine the FT from within ? what will the Stockholders and Board of FT do ? pretend that there is no conflict of interest ?, pretend that Murdoch will play fair and will not team-up with the neocons inside FT ?
Frankfurt , Paris , London , Rome, Madrid,Lisbon, as well as the rest of the great Europe , better stick together strong or they will be back stabbed from within, this is “real test time” , good luck ! Europe’s identity and destiny hangs on the balance , not to mention FT and Airbus.
Posted by: blogger | April 7th, 2008 at 4:37 pm | Report this comment