Business as usual for financiers in Japan? Not likely...
The Japanese earthquake appears to have caused some disarray within the financial community in Tokyo. Yesterday, the International Bankers Association issued a statement saying that for the big financial institutions it was 'business as usual' and that 'despite rumours to the contrary', none of the big foreign finance firms had announced business closures or evacuation of staff. The banks mentioned in the statement included the likes of Bank of America, Bank of New York, Barclays Japan, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and UBS. However, while the banks may have made no formal announcements of evacuations, there has been plenty of anecdotal evidence that it is not business as usual and that large numbers have been leaving Japan for safer havens.
Reminds us slightly of the exchange that occurs in one of the Black Adder episodes shown in Hong Kong recently.
General Melchett: 'Are you looking forward to the big push?' Private Baldrick: 'No sir, I'm absolutely terrified.' General Melchett: 'The healthy humour of the honest Tommy. Don't worry my boy, if you should falter, remember that Captain Darling and I are behind you.' Captain Blackadder: 'About 35 miles behind you.'
Banks capable of giving too
On a brighter note with respect to bankers, we see that a number of them, mostly American, are making significant donations to relief efforts in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami. Some of the numbers: JP Morgan, US$5 million; Daiwa Securities, US$1.2 million; Bank of America; US$1.2 million; Morgan Stanley, US$1.2 million; Credit Suisse, US$1 million, together with an employee matching scheme; Mitsubishi, US$2.2 million; Citi and the Citi Foundation, US$1.2 million each; and Barclays, US$2.4 million. Goldman Sachs tops the list with US$6.1 million. But that is less than half of the US$13.2 million that Goldman paid its CEO Lloyd Blankfein last year.
Bad to worse at architect's firm