Cityboy

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08 December 2009 13:22

The art of bonuses

Cityboy looks at the art of scoring big bonuses and letting your colleagues know.

LONDON - In posh bars across the Square Mile bonus talk, every Cityboy's favourite topic, started real early this year. I lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of the media that over the last few months has done nothing but exclaim that bankers' 2009 bonuses, despite a near-disastrous global financial meltdown, will be disgustingly large (eg, up 50% from last year to around £6bn, though still 40% lower than 2007's £10bn peak). Provided that the government's potential windfall tax (that may be announced tomorrow) doesn't have any major impact on bonuses Ferrari dealers and estate agents across the capital will be rubbing their hands with glee. Apparently Peter Stringfellow can hardly contain his excitement! Of course, these headlines are music to any Cityboy's ears. Firstly...

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01 December 2009 00:37

Corporate social responsibility sucks!

It’s a scam created by managers, as it makes financial sense to play along.

LONDON - To paraphrase Hermann Goering, when I hear the words "corporate social responsibility" I reach for my gun. Unfortunately, I heard those heinous words non-stop at a conference I stupidly attended recently. Frankly, the idea that huge, rapacious corporate entities think we're naïve enough to believe that they're not just out to make as much wonga as humanly possible as quickly as possible makes me cry into my beer. The fact that management teams, advised by trendy consultants, believe we're so stupid that we'll buy their horse crap that they actually care about things like the environment makes me want to massively short the shares of every single company in the "FTSE4Good" index ... for eternity.

When I was a lad you knew where you stood with industrialists and tyco...

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24 November 2009 19:10

Cityboy gets nominated for Emmy

The renegade stockbroker attended Monday's Emmy awards ceremony only to discover...

NEW YORK - Geraint Anderson, the renegade stockbroker better known as ‘Cityboy' and a regular columnist on Moneyweb, read all his columns here, is today licking his wounds. He attended Monday's Emmy awards ceremony in New York because a documentary about him had been nominated for an award. The German documentary called Cityboy - the life of investment banker Geraint Anderson, that has yet to be shown in the UK but has been aired across most European countries, describes how the former high-flyer gave up his £600K a year job in order to spill the beans on the nefarious goings on in the Square Mile - first through an anonymous newspaper column called Cityboy and then in a book of the same name. Most gallingly of all...

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