Fortune will favour the brave says banker

FORTUNE will favour the bravest investors, a leading banker has said.

Rob Taylor, chief executive of wealth management specialist Kleinwort Benson also believes senior bankers in Wall Street and in the City of London have done huge damage to investors’ confidence.

Speaking to TheBusinessDesk during a visit to Manchester, where he spoke to clients and potential clients, Mr Taylor said he has concerns  about the “end game” regarding effective state ownership of banks and other financial companies.

But he said, this situation is a consequence of the financial services community’s own mistakes:”It’s tempting for politician to manipulate assets for their own ends. Business people are not used to state control, but we have to admit we screwed it up and had to go with our tail between our legs, after all the bravado of how well we were doing, how much value we were adding and how much money we were making.

“We had to ask for a hand out because we could not cope with what we had created.”

Mr Taylor, a former journalist, said frankly that the top bosses at the helm of the worst-affected banks deserve the scorn and public scrutiny they are getting, but believes the wider business community is suffering too.

“The boardroom is where the blame lies – it’s not with the staff who were doing what they were asked to do to make money. It is not right to make pariahs out of an entire workforce.”

He said for the bravest investors opportunity beckons, but only if they can accept these may be in so-called toxic assets.

“Investors really need to understand that the best opportunities are going to be  in distress situations, but it takes a lot of courage to go back in to the market and see the opportunity.

“I think what is going to happen is there is going to be people who make shed-loads of money out of this situation, others will stay on the sidelines because they don’t have the confidence.

“Next big opportunity may be picking up packages of these mortgages, which because they are ear-marked as toxic, and are thought to have caused this problem may frighten some away. But there could be some value in there.”

Mr Taylor said post credit crunch there needed to be new levels of engagement between wealth managers and clients, with professionals not being afraid to “look eyeball to eyeball” with customers and tell them “uncomfortable truths”.