You don't know what you got until.........

Had lunch with a friend. Her bank recently hired a new senior trust person. Unfortunately, the new hire has already soured on many of their colleagues. Why? My guess (based on some obviously biased comments) was that the person was not senior enough. It didn't take long before the team discovered that their leader wasn't experienced in certain areas and lacked skills in others that they were expecting to be there in a senior person. In other words, they weren't impressed which could spell trouble.

When you don't have a clear superiority in skill or knowledge or experience then it is extremely difficult to be in a position of power as people will start challenging your judgement/decisions/authority and eventually start scheming to undermine, override or supplant you. Simple "Lord of the Flies" scenario. The thing in Asia is that you usually won't know what hit you until it's too late. Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger. Your enemies are cunning, silent and often 2-faced and rarely confrontational. Art of War.

This is mismatch is not uncommon. Different institutions, different clientèle and different roles lends to giving different experiences. Previous job titles can be misleading. Some Trust Managers are more RM-types, dealing with clients is their strong suit. Others are more trust documentation/administration oriented types, handling paperwork is where they excel. It is difficult to slot one type into a role more suited for the other type. The number of years of service does not always have a direct baring on scope and depth of their ability. Not every 10-year veteran has the same skills or knowledge. Some people have been doing the same job for years, resulting in no growth or expansion of skills in other areas. It doesn't mean they have no value, it means their value lies in that specific job only. The key is tapping what that person has and whether it is right for the role you envision. My friend's problem is they hired a person who can't cover all the bases. That person may be great at certain things but now how do you deal with the things they are not good at?

The key is knowing where their deficiencies are and compensating accordingly. Fluidity in roles is often a better solution than rigid job descriptions. This is very much like team sports. You have a basketball point guard who can run fast and dribble but is a terrible shot so you have them run with ball and pass off to a better shooter. If you continually and stubbornly try to have the guard shoot (and miss) you will doom the team. You'll eventually have to replace the guard and have under-utilized your shooter. You may mistakenly forgo your shooter too because you think it's him that is also not producing. To the casual observer, Yao Ming is great basketball player. Wrong, Yao Ming plays the center position, he is a great center. There are many positions or roles on the basketball team that he does not do well. If Yao is on your team, you need to recognize the things he cannot do or does not do well at and find complementary players. Don't try to sell him to internal or external parties as a great basketball player as you will raise false expectations and make his weaknesses so much more glaring.

Where you can, you find players to fit the scheme. When you can't, you change the scheme to fit the players you have. Of course, whoever is doing the hiring has to intimately know the scheme and be able to evaluate talent. That is often the weakness companies (particularly smaller bank trustees or independents) where the decision-maker is often not a trust person, they do not understand the scheme. They hire the wrong person to run (or fill important positions within) the trust business and the domino effect flows downward. Let's say this new trust hire was a poor marketer....then hire a marketer to handle client facing tasks. Or if they have no local technical experience, then hire a local trust lawyer, etc.. This is called having a game plan. The sooner you have one the better. Some never do, destined to repeat this mistake over and over again.

I once carried a nice lady on the team until her retirement. Starting out as assistant in the Jurassic era and slowly (more like begrudgingly) promoted to manager by the time I got there. She was crippling shy and incomprehensible in front of clients. She had no sense of management whatsoever. She would wilt under the pressure of having a full plate of tasks that her peers had. She hated certain aspects of her job. She was 40. No doubt she would have been fired if we didn't have the luxury to do something out of the ordinary. I would have paid anyone to take her off my hands had we been stuck to keep her as full fledged manager. I would have laughed had anyone hired her to be a regular trust manager. But she was also one of the most efficient and detailed-oriented persons ever and could do certain parts of her job blindfolded. We reached an accord to keep her in the back office. Restricted her role to certain tasks. She accepted a static pay and grade package over the last 10 years and had little to do except her job as we narrowly defined it. Worked out great for both parties as she held the fort, freed up others to concentrate on their other tasks, passed on her "good" skills to her assistants, minimalized her liability to the company and made her a happy camper. She was like a designated hitter in baseball. She couldn't run, she couldn't pitch, she couldn't catch. But she could hit well. We made her the designated hitter. She produced. The team won. It could have been a long road trying to find someone who has the right combination of ability to run, pitch, catch, run and hit.

Far too often in HR and building a team business is you don't know what you got until:

1. The person is on the job. All the lies and exaggerations on the CV reveal themselves. Character flaws come out. Almost never is botching a hire a factor in assessing management or the HR function. Does anyone keep records on hit & misses? Or do they just file another personnel requisition form? Hiring the wrong person should be a punishable offense for the offender.
2. The predecessor has left the job. All the things you took for granted reveal themselves. Things that weren't taught now need to be. Good HR is also about retainment an not just about recruitment. Good help is sometimes truly hard to find. Losing the wrong person can be crippling and more far reaching than you can image.
3. You underpay someone. There are usually reasons why people are willing to accept lowball offers. Yes, economics are a factor in today's market but more often than not, these people are in some way, flawed and are passed over by others for a reason. Needles in haystacks can be found. There are those that win the lottery. Are you really that lucky? This is not to say that aren't good at some aspects of the job. It is that you were expecting and perhaps counting on a Grand Slam tennis player but will find out that they can't play on clay or grass. If they are good, they will leave as they will get a better offer one day. If they're not, then you got what you paid for. There are no bargains, just trade-offs.
4. You hire someone at above market. People with consistently high pay grades usually can do something special. Forget the 1 year, one-hit wonders, but if the guy/gal has been pulling $X for several years, then they got something. There is a difference between overpaying (not getting your money's worth) and paying a premium (to get more than your money's worth) and that boils down to your talent assessment skills. I often hear people balk at even paying market, and the thought of going above market never occurs to them. It's unfortunate that managers are too often reluctant to challenge preset budgets or "wheel & deal" to get good staff. Meeting payroll budget is more important than finding a shoe that fits. They rather live with what they can afford and live with the callouses or pain than seek out the better, forget about a quest for the best. Some are just blind to the opportunities. They wouldn't recognize talent if it came up and bit them. I would be sympathetic to those very small organisations where meeting the next month's rent is the goal, but is there any excuse for any of the larger firms? Far too often, they have a bargain hunting mentality and they immediately give up and say we can't afford him/her. Can you say the sirloin you have is good until you've tried the filet mignon? You may find out you don't even have sirloin. Try it, you're allowed to make mistakes...remember no one is counting. Signing David Beckham to your team may not bring championships but has anyone said it wasn't worth it? It's not always goals scored but also intangibles like skill sets, experience, marketing, credibility, leadership, work ethics, increasing the professionalism of your team, raising profile of your organisation, etc. that could take you places your organisation have never been. Unlike Beckham, we are not talking tens of millions here. Very often, the difference between an average trust person and great trust person is a matter of a few thousand US$ per month. I've seen entertainment expenses higher than that. Read the part about American football coach/manager Sean Payton and his recruitment tale here (#2 story): http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/10/04/mmqb.week.4/index.html It appears a mere 25% budget increase in one single salary offer changed the fortunes of the organisation. Now that's a bargain. Forget the personal sacrifice aspect, do you even have such "visionaries" who would suggest such a move doing the hiring for your team? Or did they just come back with someone who came in under budget?
5. You study team sports. I strongly recommend that your HR people and senior personnel decision makers spend a weekend at some offsite facility and "analyze" (not watch but read all the books, and writings of managers of) team sports, like American NFL football or North America NHL ice hockey or NBA basketball, European UEFA football/soccer. These organizations' success depends greatly on the skills of the people they put on the playing field. Aren't we the same? Every year, there are batch of young collegiate graduates/juniors that get drafted onto your team. Don't many of us use new recruits? Every season, there are players that get traded/transferred/poached from one team to another or retire or get released or change positions on the team. Don't we have the same people moves? All these personnel transactions are done within the constraint of team size and team budget. Don't we have headcounts and budgets? There are a limited number of superstars like Kobe Bryant or LeBron James to go around, so how do teams compensate when they don't have a superstar at certain positions? The managers have to be good judge of talent, balance team chemistry as well as produce wins in addition to balancing the books except team managers often get fired for their bad transactions. Look closely at the critiques of the strategies and techniques of team managers that have been successful and also those that have been abysmal. In case you think it's trivial, the sums that a Cristiano Renaldo or Alex Rodriguez command may exceed the payroll of more than a few small banks. The value of Man U or the Dallas Cowboys run close to $2billion, not Citigroup-sized but how many trust businesses are worth $2billion? Sustained success like the New York Yankees organization shows that it can be done and done by having a formula for acquiring and retaining talent, not luck. Finding the formula that's right for your organization is the goal. Lastly, remember no one wants to play for or support a dysfunctional team as they lose more often than they win. Your intermediaries are watching your personnel moves. Your competitors are watching your personnel moves. Your staff and prospective hires are also watching.

Performance Assessment & Staff Evaluations = crock o shit

Allow me to stray from my usual trust ramblings for a minute.

As we near the time where we spend literally several hours on the process of filing Evaluation Forms and reviews and goal setting for each employee, I just have to say: What a waste of time!

I strongly believe in providing feedback and setting goals and targets, etc. I strongly believe that only good people should be rewarded. What I also strongly believe is that the processes we now endure are not achieving the goal it was supposed to. In the end, it comes own to a very simple question: Did you do your job? The larger the organization it seems, the more ludicrous the forms and convoluted the process. To paraphrase, the system is a mere shadow of what it was intended to represent, sometimes distorted beyond recognition.

Instead of hours of paperwork, how about a face-to-face with supervisors, underlings, internal and external customers/vendors and peers? A 360degree summary would surely tell us more than the stack of literally worthless paper we are generating wouldn't it? And for those that foolishly rely on numbers (such as revenue targets, etc), numbers can tell you anything you want, including and excluding the truth.

We, in the trustee industry, are in the business of providing a service (which may come to a surprise to our banker friends that far-too-often consider trusts to be a product). Sales figures do not reflect whether it was good service. Consider the scenario of a young OL going into Louis Vuitton. She will walk out with a handbag. Was it because of the brand? Was it the design of the bag? Was it the sales staff? Was it the price? Numbers don't tell you what you need to know in staff evaluations because whether the customer was happy with the staff (regardless of whether a sale was made) should have been the paramount evaluation criterion. If someone choses Chanel or Ferragamo instead, was it your sales staff at fault or your product people? Was it your marketing people?

An interview with interested parties would get you closer to the truth and how to manage your organization and people better. You may have the best trust team and not know it because other factors drove customers away. You may have the worst trust team but get away with it because you have the strongest brand or cheapest pricing. For those who do have the organization's long term interests at heart, knowing why you are successful and knowing why you have failed is just as important as the result. Are you in the trust business or dumb luck business?

Alas, we tend to give out promotions and bonuses based on good numbers and not good service. We tend to chastise and punish for bad numbers. I had a team once that went overboard on hours spent and were red flagged to my attention. A cursory view was they were simply inefficient and mismanaging resources, in other words: doing a bad job. A deeper investigation turned out that the problem was much worse in that they were understating time costs in order to look better. Where was the time going? It was picking up the slack for a loss of a senior team member, spent training up a junior replacement and getting the run around from another user who had made a rather ridiculous demand for data which require manual adjustments to the standard computer generated reports. So whose to blame? The supervisor who let the senior staff go? The same supervisor who hired an inadequate replacement? The supervisor that allowed inter-department intrusions? The other department head? The team itself? With facts and details, you can decide. With a simple bad number, you have no idea.

Oh well....back to the forms.

Accountants & Secretaries: Trust Wildcards

After breaking down (or tearing down) the legal profession, it's now turn to look at usual suspects in helping (or conning) people into creating trusts: the accountants and company secretaries.

For those who do not like long blogs, the short answer is: never let a CoSec plan your trust and don't bother looking for an accountant to advise on trust work as they don't exist in Asia.

For those who seek wisdom, scroll on down........

Now the typical accountant knows nothing about creating or administering trusts. So why are accountants part of the trust business picture? For starters, they know where the wealth is. Like pigs find truffles, where you find accountants, you find money. Forget private bankers, who only see bankables (cash, stocks and bonds). That is typically only the tip of the iceberg. Particularly in Asia where much wealth is generated and not inherited, what lies beneath the millions that are invested in the banking world, are billions that are tied up in real estate and trading companies and manufacturing plants. Accountants project cash flows, so they know how your business is going to make. They prepare your personal tax returns so they know how much you made. They audit (modern speak: offer assurance services to) your companies and know what it's worth down to the number of paper clips and writing pads you have in the desk. They also help cook the books so no one else knows. They were in every corner of the world, from the every former Colonial colony to the sand dunes outside Dubai, to the steamy jungle of Labuan, to the skyscrapers of Hong Kong to the most isolated Pacific tax haven. They had global networks for cross-border transactions that so-called international law firms and banks envied. They already have the ear of the movers and shakers, rock stars and sport celebrities. A good accountant is like the trusted butler and trust goes a long way in our business. It was a logical progression for some accountants to move into the personal wealth consulting business.

A small group of specialized accountants know about accounting (fancy word for book-keeping) for trusts and unless you're a trustee, run a NPO/charity or have your own private trust company (PTC), you will never need to know about them. But like a chef opening his own restaurant, these accountants also took over the trustee businesses often from the inside.

Now when it comes to trusts, accountants and CoSecs are somewhat handicapped by their lack of formal training in trust law......kind of important wouldn't you think? If it wasn't apparent in the discussion about trust lawyers, trust law is a very specialized area of law that even regular lawyers aren't qualified to work in. Essentially some accountants and CoSecs are practicing trust law without a license. Scary and potentially life-threatening but, accountants are kind of like building/construction contractors......they may not understand the physics and structural engineering that goes behind building a house but they can get it done. Sometimes it's monkey see, monkey do. Sometimes, as a result of diligent self study and supplemental education. Far too often, lawyers are like one-night stands (come in, drop off the advisory and then disappear) whereas accountants are still part of the picture for years to come as trust accountants or tax consultants, etc. and practice makes perfect. Or at least they see and learn from the practical side of things. And sometimes, that makes them superior to any theory spewing from the lawyers. But the bigger or more complex the building, the more the accountants' handicap becomes apparent.

Unlike the UK, Australia or US, Canada, accountants that provide trust advisory have virtually disappeared from Asia. There are a few dinosaurs holding out but their demise is inevitable. Their ELE (extinction level event) happened with the CPA blow up of the late eighties/early nineties. CPA firms had too many fingers in too many pies, everything from tax to trusts, to probate/estate, to business consulting, to HR, to share registries, company secretarial, to syndicated loans, etc.. Conflict of interest charges, audit failures, Arthur Andersen and ka-boom. The big 8 became Big 4, non-core accountancy businesses were sold off or wound down. Most trust advisory CPAs retired, sought refuge in trust companies or gave up trust advisory and return to their core practices.

Then the death knell....abolishment of Estate Duty in Hong Kong then Singapore in the second half of this decade. With the disappearance of the most obvious tax and trust need, the heyday of the trust planning accountant was over. So unless your CPA is a dinosaur from the 80s or a migrant from one of the aforementioned places, they probably know nothing about trusts. You don't want to part of anyone's learning curve or initial foray into the trust world.

Company Secretaries. The people that incorporate and administer to companies, be it a listed conglomerate to your $1 tax haven PIC. These professionals can be part of any legal practice, accountancy practice, bank, trustee or private operation. Where there are companies, there are likely wealthy shareholders, hence the road for CoSec's to enter the private wealth arena. Consider Trust 101: Despite many similarities in their constitution and construction and even operation, a trust is not the same as a limited company. Astronomy versus astrology. CoSec's that fail to appreciate and understand that basic principle are likely to screw up any trust advisory and trust administration. They are like your building superintendent/management company. They help keep things running in the building but would you hire them to be architects or structural engineers?

Next up....the banks, insurers, FAs and trust companies.

Trust Lawyers: Genus, Geniuses & Glamour Queens

The 2009 STEP Asia conference is one of the largest regional gatherings of saints, sharks or scum-sucking bottom dwellers, depending on your perspective. Some lawyers gather to stimulate and educate, some gather to shock and offend, some gather to drum up business, some gather to be seen.

Everyone should have a "trust lawyer", be it those who create trusts, those who act as trustee, those who are beneficiaries of a trust, those who manage trust assets and those that want someone else's trust assets. I take time to reflect and help you identify and classify the creature known as a trust lawyer. Be an educated consumer.

The "real" Trust Lawyer: Despite many pretenders that appear to be the same, these are law professionals that deal almost exclusively with trust matters. Spouting jurisprudence like gospel. They speak an almost foreign language with Latin tones and big words like: fiduciary. They are almost never seen without a trust deed clutched in their hands. These are the people other "pretend" trust lawyers call to for help. Due to insignificant trust history and trust litigation in Asia, these "true" trust lawyers are non-existent in Asia. There just isn't enough feeding habitat for them. Besides, corporate trustee companies have virtually hunted the Trust Lawyer as trustee to death. Aside from the UK and few former UK-connected offshore centers like in the Caribbean, these shy and inquisitive creatures rarely venture out of their out-of-the-way, cubby hole office and are usually only sited at gatherings like STEP only. Normally quite docile, there are some that have been bred with aggressive traits. These nasty counterparts are sometimes adorned with "silk" are more commonly known as litigators and are often seen locked in mortal combat. You don't want to mess with them.

Yes, the US has plenty of them too but they lack sophistication that years of evolution bring and they chase ambulances too - black sheep of the family who play by different rules. It would be remiss of me not to say that Australia has its own unique sub-species, but like with all evolutionary processes there, Aussie trust lawyers are uniquely strange and considered distant cousins to their global counterparts.

Private Client Lawyers: This species caters to hunting, farming and cultivating individuals with money. They can be one's best friend offering advice on anything to do with buying things, selling things, marriage and divorce, employment, succession planning, immigration, philanthropy, taxes and everything in between that a wealthy individual should and could need, including a personal or family trust. Heck, some even are trustees. For a fee of course, as money drives this animal. If there's no money in the deal, then they rapidly lose interest. These lawyers can be well versed in trust matters but they often cover far more bases to be considered a true trust expert after all, "private client" is a segment of the market they serve not a law speciality . Whether these lawyers are good at trusts or anything or everything depends on the individual. Some are better hunters, some are better farmers. This tree of the family is usually out prancing in public and are very vocal displaying their colourful tail feathers and have an appetite for fine foods. You often find them in large lairs with fancy private bank decor. (If you find one in second-rate offices and vinyl furnishings, you must ask yourself how good can this guy be if he isn't making a killing milking 10% of every clients' wealth?) Consider them well groomed pedigree Cocker Spaniels of the legal world. For most, these lawyers can get you 75%, even 90% of whatever trust matters you need handled. Of course they can botch it as well. For the really sticky stuff, the smart ones call a real Trust Lawyer for assistance.

Family Law Lawyers: This species focuses mainly on the weddings and divorces, kids, parents and the unborn. I'll combine them with their closely related cousin, the Wills/Probate/Estate Lawyer whose job is mainly dealing with impending death and/or funerals. Sometimes they are one and the same. Both are very likely to dabble in trusts. Unlike their Private Client counterparts, these animals are generally low key and under-appreciated. These are the Saint Bernards of the legal world. Should you ever need one, you will be glad you found one. These lawyers can be quite well versed in planning with trusts and even creating them, usually much better than their typical Private Client counterparts. They are certainly much better at understanding the ramifications of their work than others. However, they can be too narrow focused and don't seem to give as much bang for the buck. If there isn't flesh and blood involved, then they get confused. The commercial and financial world is virtually alien to them. Use them in conjunction with another species and you could have the best of breed.

Tax Lawyers: This species originated in fiscally-ravaged areas. It followed the migration herds to all corners of the world. This species is usually the one that most wealthy seek out as saving/cheating on your taxes is a national sport in most countries. Tax Lawyers love trust work, like moths to a flame. It gives them the opportunity for them to exercise their prowess and cunning, just like a cat that likes to play with its prey. Unfortunately, this species is also the most challenged when it comes to trust planning. Beware of the Tax Lawyer as they have a one-track mind, eliminate tax. All else be dammed. As a result, some of the greatest trust follies, litigation and jail sentences have arisen from tax-driven cases. A good Tax Lawyer may get you 65% of the trust solution, with a caveat that it may also get you 7-10years in prison. All kidding aside, some Tax Lawyers are also excellent Trust Lawyers. But just some. My advice is never let a tax guy drive your trust planning. They can help navigate but please do not let them drive.

Commercial Lawyers: This specie usually only deals with companies and tend to be blind in seeing people or their problems. If you need a S&P contract or IPO or Shareholders' Agreement, then these are your guys. They are like polar opposites with Family Lawyers, in that these guys forget that humans are involved. But, like everything they do, their trust work is planned and drawn up like a contract or Company M&A so they earn the ire of those who believe in the rules of equity.....like the true Trust Lawyer. In general, they are light-weights in trust planning. They do neither good nor wrong. They are like GPs in the doctor world. They rarely kill but they also rarely save lives. In general, if a Commercial Lawyer suggests a trust, ask for referral to a specialist. They can ride shot gun.

Corporate Trust Lawyers: These are the people that create pension trusts, securitization trusts, unit trusts (of hedge funds), custodial and sometimes charitable trusts. These lawyers tend to be narrowly focused on the minefield of regulations and compliance issues dealing with corporate trusts but they know the principles of trusts. They have their own little world. If you need these types of trusts then they are best at what they do. However, if you need a personal or family trust, then they are of no more help than a baker is in telling how to cook your steak. Good general advice but not spot on.

At the end of the day, it comes down to people, not just qualifications or reputations (as some are earned and some are not). Good people do good work. Bad people do bad work. Smart people know their limitations. Dumb people have none. Honest advisors tell you what you should hear. Dishonest advisers tell you what you want to hear.

Another time, I'll dissect trust accountants and trustees...........

The Poor close the gap..momentarily

In case you're in denial about the state of the economy or have been hiding under a rock, you can read all about the doom and gloom of the past year with the Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Asia-Pacific Wealth Report 2009. Sorry I don't have a free download link yet.

Asian wealth was down. Oooo.....Big surprise.

Asian wealth is expected to grow. Emmmh....Big surprise.

"Asia Pacific HNWIs increased their allocations to safer and simpler investments last year in a move to preserve wealth." Yawn......Big surprise.

"China’s HNWI population surpassed that of the U.K. to become the fourth-largest in the world." My only surprise is the speed and quantity of wealth accumulation that has taken place and will take place. The numbers simply boggle the mind.

You jump....I jump

What a big splash BSI is making, taking a chunk out of RBS Coutts : http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_441559.html

Says a few things doesn't it?

Has to be one of the biggest (in sheer numbers) people moves ever. Kudos to Hanspeter and Raj.. Congratulations to RBS management, you no longer have a headcount problem.

How aggressive BSI was. For a new player in Asia, it essentially bought itself a turn-key operation. There might not be too many stars out of the 75 (or whatever number is actually going to BSI) but the key to Asian (particularly Singaporean) private banking may be more about having willing warm bodies people than superstars. BSI probably overpaid and egos played a bigger role than common sense but BSI hits the ground running. It might take a year or 2 for BSI to recoup this initial outlay but at least it tells everyone that they are committed. If you're looking for job security (for 3 years it seems) and the chance to join a hungry player, time to contact ol' Hans. The place is ripe for some people to make their mark.

How low was morale at RBS Coutts before and now? What this comes down to is people saying: "abandon ship". To have that many people leave is an indictment on the poor staff relations at RBS. Yes the economic meltdown and government bailout took its toll on morale, confidence and the company's coffers so pay rises and bonuses were all taken off the table. But that's an industry wide problem so why haven't people from Citi or HSBC jumped ship en masse for BSI? Aside from money, clearly there are other work place issues. Love to be a fly on the wall at a real exit interview (the kind headhunters and HR consultants conduct, not the check the box form your HR does when you leave). Senior management at RBS simply forgot or ignored that managing your human capital is just as important as managing the bottom line. Is BSI a better place to work? Is BSI really paying that much more? Does BSI offer more room for personal/career development? I would say marginal at best. Going to BSI has its own risks as it is a new player and a small one on the global level. This is not like getting a cache offer from Goldmans. Heck it doesn't even have the job security of going to DBS. So 75 chose to face the unknown rather stick around. RBS spin doctors will play it down as some money grab and a frivolous spender and management may delude itself but symptoms of a cancerous growth within the Singapore office are evident. In these times, almost all operations are running extremely lean, even understaffed, so losing 5% your staff is a major inconvenience. Losing a third is almost crippling. Guess how bad blood will flow to the regional offices that have to help cover and/or send in reinforcements?? More heads, and very senior heads, should start rolling at Coutts if there's any chance of change.

If you had a choice, would you join a company where 75 of your peers had just dissed as being a hell hole of a place to work? How many of those 75, without fear of repercussions, are bad-mouthing you now? How many of the those remaining are looking for a life preserver? Some will reach for theirs, sooner or later. How much "extra" do you need to spend to keep the rest of the staff from defecting? How much in recruiting, training and disruption costs to replace those 75? Traditional slash and burn HR cost cutting tactics often forget the humans, the most volatile part of the equation. Unlike beasts of burden, you can't run them into the ground, they have pride and they have legs and 75 just proved it. Treat them badly and and they will bite the hands that feed them.

To all those bean counters and their devoted disciples at RBS (and elsewhere), who scoff and marginalize the hard and soft costs of staffing, ask yourself if BSI could do it, why couldn't you? How much will this little episode really cost you? In the grand scheme of things, saving a few million in bonuses, incentives, salary and other HR expenses (like training, staff events, etc) isn't much in a multi-billion dollar enterprise but means another leaky hole in your ship. And we all know rats have no loyalties when it comes leaky sinking ship.

Au Revoir Mes Amis

Following BNP Paribas' earlier statement, now all French banks have boldly declared that they are pulling out of OECD grey list countries by March 2010:

http://www.reuters.com/article/usDollarRpt/idUSL156191120091001

Now considering that there are still some 20+ countries on the grey and black lists, that is a big bold statement to make. So a toast and best wishes to our friends and colleagues in BNP, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and others, that may be re-trenched, re-allocated or made redundant during this shuffle. Sacrificial sheep.

Au revoir to those beautiful tropical fish screen savers from the Carribbean branches.

Au revoir to those beautiful sandy beach calenders from the Pacific island branches.

Au revoir to those cases of red wine from the Chilean branches.

But think about it a little more.......

Au revoir to being a French bank? Will there be more "bracket" SUISSE "close bracket" companies a-la Crédit Agricole (Suisse) SA to get around Sarkozy deal?

Au revoir to "above board" marketing trips into the Philippines or Malaysia. Avoid your Compliance Officer, throw out your cross border marketing procedure manual and get your vacation disguises, encrypted laptops and disappearing ink pens ready now. Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to go into hostile (but profitable) territory, in clandestine, and should you or any team member be caught or killed, the Bank will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Tis the life of a mercenary in the Légion étrangère.

Au revoir to all those bank accounts under Panamanian foundations and those still grey-listed (Cooks islands, Bahamas, etc) IBCs under management too?

and lastly................

Au revoir to all of you at the Tung Centre or Raffles Quay, if Singapore doesn't make it off the grey list in time (see 12 monkeys post below)