Banker takes stock of a three-decade career

59-year-old financier reflects on the 'astonishing' pace of change in Hong Kong's investment industry

Thirty years ago, Ralph Parks paid less than US$500 a month to live in a three-bedroom flat on Po Shan Road in Mid-Levels. He played tennis during lunch breaks at the Cricket Club on Chater Road in Central and Jardine House was the tallest building in Hong Kong.

At the time, Mr Parks worked for Merrill Lynch, then an up-and-coming New York brokerage house that had yet to make its mark on the city's investment banking industry. Swire and Jardine were the British-backed powerhouses running colonial Hong Kong.

These days, Mr Parks lives in a spacious, two-storey, JP Morgan-owned apartment on the Peak. The Cricket Club has moved out of town and Jardine House stands in the shadow of about half a dozen taller skyscrapers across the street from Chater House, the new headquarters of JP Morgan Asia, where Mr Parks has served as chairman for the past two years.

'It was just so different then,' said the 59-year-old Mr Parks during a recent interview. 'When I arrived in Hong Kong in June 1973, the Hang Seng Index had just come crashing down a few months before and had lost about 80 per cent of its value. The town was run by the likes of Swire, Jardine and Wheelock Marden. No international investment banking firms were present in Hong Kong providing investment banking services as we know today.

'Looking back on those 30 years, it's been very concentrated in terms of development. There were vast areas of the New Territories that were just paddy fields. The Cross Harbour Tunnel was brand new.'