歐洲投行 前行不易撤退亦難 A global retreat for European banks
Credit Suisse is raising SFr6bn of fresh capital while cutting back the amount that it allocates to securities trading; Deutsche Bank is dividing its investment banking division in two and wants to trim it; Barclays’ intended chief executive, Jes Staley, is likely to curtail its investment bank outside the UK and the US. It does not take a genius to notice a common theme for European investment banks: retreat.
瑞信(Credit Suisse)正在籌集60億瑞士法郎的新資本，同時削減證券交易業務的資金。德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)將把投行部門一分爲二，並希望削減其規模；巴克萊(Barclays)擬任首席執行官傑斯斯特利(Jes Staley)可能削減英美以外的投行業務。你無需是個天才就能注意到歐洲投行的共同主題：撤退。
In April, I wrote that Europe needed at least one investment bank to compete head on with US giants such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. Shortly afterwards, Anshu Jain resigned as co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank and Europe’s banks headed in the opposite direction. UBS, which has raised its profitability since cutting bond trading in 2012, is the new model.
我在今年4月曾寫道，歐洲至少需要有一家投行與高盛(Goldman Sachs)和摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)等美國巨頭展開正面競爭。此後不久，安舒賈恩(Anshu Jain)辭去了德銀聯席首席執行官的職務，歐洲銀行走向了相反的方向。瑞銀(UBS)是新的模式。自2012年削減債券交易以來，瑞銀的盈利能力有所提升。
One can see their point. It is very hard to break into Wall Street and even Goldman is having difficulties with bond trading, the dominant revenue producer of the pre-2008 boom. It is even harder for European banks such as Deutsche to make a decent return when such activities have been hit by higher capital and liquidity requirements. Shareholders are no longer willing to tolerate them dallying.
他們的想法不難理解。打入華爾街是非常困難的，甚至高盛也在債券交易業務上遇到困難——債券交易是2008年之前那段繁榮期的主要收入來源。在此類活動因資本金和流動性要求提高而遭受打擊之時，德銀等歐洲銀行就更難獲得體面回報了。股東已不願意再忍受他們混日子。
Global investment banking is an expensive business that involves paying a lot of employees very highly to do many different things — from advising companies to underwriting equities and bonds, to trading currencies and precious metals — in many places at once. When enough of these activities are doing well they support the rest; when few are, it is painful.
跨國投資銀行是一項昂貴的業務，包括要高價聘請許多員工在許多地方同時做許多不同的事情——從爲公司提供諮詢服務、到承銷股票和債券，再到交易外匯和貴金屬。當有足夠多的活動表現不錯的時候，它們就會支撐起剩餘的活動，當沒有幾樣活動表現不錯的時候，情況就會令人痛苦。
But as Napoleon discovered on his way back from Moscow in 1812, retreating can be at least as hard and risky as advancing. In theory, it makes sense to ditch the parts of investment banks that do not achieve high returns and retain the parts that do. In practice, it is not as simple as that. If it were, European banks would not have expanded as much in the first place.
但是正如拿破崙1812年從莫斯科撤退時發現的那樣，撤退至少可以和前進一樣艱難和充滿風險。理論上，砍掉沒有實現高回報的投行部門、保留高回報部門是明智之舉。但在實踐中則並非那麼簡單。否則，歐洲銀行當初根本就不會擴張那麼多。
The first difficulty with retreating is that you need somewhere better to retreat to. UBS did the obvious three years ago because its fixed income division was not only facing regulatory pressure but was barely profitable in the first place. Meanwhile, it owned one of the world’s best private banks and wealth management divisions. What would you have done?
撤退的第一個困難在於，需要有一個更好的地方供你回撤。瑞銀3年前做了個毫無懸念的選擇，因爲它的固定收益部門當時不僅面臨監管壓力，而且原本就幾乎不盈利。與此同時，它的私人銀行和財富管理部門卻是世界一流的。換了你，你會怎麼做？
Credit Suisse has a comparable ease of choice, although less obviously than UBS since its wealth management arm is smaller and it operates the former First Boston on Wall Street. Tidjane Thiam, its new chief executive, has now set it firmly on the UBS path. Similarly, Barclays has a decent investment bank in the US and UK, and a strong UK retail bank, although it faces the problem of the UK capital ringfence.
瑞信的選擇也差不多容易，儘管該怎麼選不如瑞銀那麼明顯，這是因爲它的財富管理部門較小，並且它還在華爾街上運營着曾經的第一波士頓(First Boston)。瑞信新任首席執行官提賈尼舠驕姆(Tidjane Thiam)現在讓該行堅定地走上了瑞銀的道路。同樣，巴克萊在美國和英國有不錯的投行部門，還有強勁的英國零售銀行，儘管它面臨英國資本“圈護”的問題。
John Cryan, the new chief executive of Deutsche Bank, has a tougher task. Not only is Deutsche’s domestic retail bank outmatched by German savings bank, but bond trading was its biggest strength. It wants to build up equities and wealth management but that will take time — meanwhile, it cannot retreat at the speed of UBS because it would be left with too little.
德銀新任首席執行官約翰克賴恩(John Cryan)更難抉擇。德銀在德國國內的零售銀行趕不上德國儲蓄銀行，不僅如此，德銀的債券交易還是其最大的強項。它希望建立股票和財富管理業務，但那將需要時間，與此同時，它不可能以瑞銀那樣的速度撤退，因爲那將會讓它的業務所剩無幾。
The second difficulty is that the various parts of a global investment bank fit together in a way that makes it tricky to drop the lossmaking ones while retaining the profitable ones. Equity trading and broking, for example, is a commoditised business with low margins but it enables profitable activities such as equity underwriting. There is collateral damage if you cut it.
第二個困難在於，一家跨國投行的各個部門其實是一個緊密的整體，這讓它很難砍掉虧損部門、同時保留盈利部門。例如，股票交易和經紀是一個低利潤率的商品化業務，但它支持了股票承銷等盈利性活動。如果你砍掉該部門，就會帶來連帶損害。
Every bank yearns to have a big wealth management division; to advise companies on mergers and acquisitions; to underwrite initial public offerings and to operate in profitable markets without having to keep offices open in countries that are in recession. But it took banks such as Morgan Stanley decades of investment — and consistency — to achieve their lead.
每家銀行都渴望有一個龐大的財富管理部門；爲併購提供諮詢；承銷IPO；在有利可圖的市場運營，而不用在陷入衰退的國家開門營業。但摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)等銀行如今的領先地位是經過幾十年的投資（以及堅持）才實現的。
Third, doing some things but not others is a tricky brand offering. Most of us know what a global investment bank offers — broad financial services for corporates and institutional investors. We also understand what a banking boutique does — a few services for companies, including advisory work. But what about a medium-sized European bank with global reach?
第三，做一些業務但不做另一些業務，這在品牌定位上難以把握。我們大多數人知道，一家跨國投資銀行提供什麼——爲企業和機構投資者提供全面的金融服務。我們也明白一家精品銀行做什麼——爲公司提供包括顧問工作在內的一些服務。但一家中等規模、在世界各地設有分支的歐洲銀行是什麼樣的呢？
