Lunchtime Links: This senior JPMorgan banker grew up in South London, was in the SAS, and prospects for gold in Afghanistan

It would be inaccurate to assume that all investment bankers were educated at public schools. It would also be inaccurate to assume they spend their time behind desks or on planes.

Fortune Magazine has a long and interesting article about Ian Charles Hannam, a JPMorgan banker who is as far removed from the stereotype as is humanly possible.

Hannam, chairman of JPMorgan Capital Markets, is in Afghanistan, looking for gold. The son of a council worker who oversaw a housing and street repair crew, he grew up in the badlands of South London and joined the Territorial SAS aged 17.

While he was in the SAS, Hannam also studied civil engineering at Imperial. He graduated in 1977, worked for Taylor Woodrow and in 1984 did an MBA at London Business School. From there, he got a job at Salomon Brothers in New York (having parachuted into America with the SAS), before joining Robert Fleming, which was acquired by JPMorgan. He's worked for JPM ever since.

Fortune claims Hannam brags about his wealth and has nasty table manners. "I've got more degrees than I can count, but I still talk like I'm illiterate, and my colleagues hate me for it," he has reputedly said in the past.

Nevertheless, Hannam purportedly has a wife and three children, a townhouse in Notting Hill, a wild game preserve in the Stormberg mountains of South Africa, and a 230-acre estate in Vermont. And he flies around Afghanistan in Black Hawk Helicopters looking for gold. Deskbound bankers could be forgiven their envy.

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