Morning Coffee: The world’s best banker freebie is coming to an end. Hong Kong’s hottest new jobs

Larry Fink must have known that it was going to be a tough job when he agreed to become interim co-chair of the World Economic Forum, the organising committee of Davos.  It must have felt like the billionaire equivalent of the PTA job or carnival organising committee board that nobody wants to do, and so which ends up being done by the most public-spirited person present.  But even in his worst stress dreams about this year’s party, he can’t have foreseen himself trying to calm down a hostile crowd at a dinner where Al Gore heckled the US Secretary of Commerce and the President of the European Central Bank walked out.

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It has been that kind of a year.  Historically, the criticism of Davos has been that it’s tended to be a bit boring or vapid, with middlebrow celebrities trying to act like serious businesspeople and philanthropists, as CEOs sang show tunes and pretended to understand algorithms.  This year, the headlines have been more about “possible imminent annexation of NATO” than “whither women in biotechnology”.  Even the celebs have been more newsworthy than usual.

So even if nobody else remembers their thank you letters, the news media ought to be wishing Larry a hearty “best Davos ever” as they pack up their snow boots.  But it might be the last one.

Because apparently, Fink is considering moving the WEF meetings to “Dublin or Detroit” (these might have been picked because they begin with the same letter) or to “Jakarta and Buenos Aires”.  And that would be a totally different vibe.

It’s obviously more convenient for the attendees to hold the conference in a normal city where you aren’t booking up the entire hotel space plus a little bit more.  And the embarrassment factor of having all the private jets practically visible from the climate change panels would be reduced. But it’s not all about convenience.

If the WEF takes place in a city, the CEOs of major banks are likely to spend most of their time at their local office doing normal work, and then just hop downtown for their panels and meetings.  That reduces the opportunities for informal contact and chance meetings that take place when there’s nothing else to do and you’re suddenly in a town where half the population are CEOs.

Also, you can’t ski in Dublin or Jakarta, and if you wander round central Detroit looking for a piano bar you might have a nasty encounter.  For decades, Davos has been the ultimate banker freebie.  It’s incredibly expensive, but the company pays and you get to have fun.  If it’s just another economic forum, it’s gradually only going to attract the kind of people who actually enjoy panel sessions about opportunities in African telecoms. 

If this happens to Davos, it might as well be a Zoom call.  That would be a lot less stress for BlackRock’s CEO to organise, but a sad day for ambitious and fun-loving bankers.  At least they will have gone out with an unforgettable bang.

Elsewhere in the world, the general atmosphere of chaos that’s characterised the beginning of 2026 is fantastic news for those who profit from volatility.  And among that number are bankers in the equity-linked bond market.  The Hong Kong market has already done $2.5bn of convertibles deals so far this year; that’s the best start since 2021 and just about double the pace of 2025, which was itself a record year for issuance.

Convertibles are always attractive to investors and issuers when equity volatility is high, because this increases the value of the embedded option, giving the companies a lower coupon and investors more upside.  They also tend to benefit from a “success breeds success” effect – they are slightly unconventional financial instruments, so it’s good to be able to point nervous clients toward recent deals that have gone well.  And a healthy convertibles market is always good for the overall industry, because the investor base tends to include a lot of hedge funds who actively trade them.  Local specialists for global banks like Goldman Sachs’ Christian Lhert and BoA’s Sam Ng are going to be good people to know this year.

Meanwhile…

Barclays has started the formal process to begin moving its European headquarters from Dublin to Paris. While this may make it less convenient for future Davos summits, it recognises that the “financial capital of Euroland” battle has been definitively won. (Financial News)

More Davos kerfuffle – US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has claimed that Christian Sewing called him up to disavow George Saravelos’ research report.  Deutsche is neither confirming nor denying, saying that “We generally do not comment on potential communication between the bank and government representatives” and reminding everyone that the point of an independent research department is that it’s not telling you what the management thinks in the first place.  (Reuters)

After yesterday’s announcement of Alex Berkett, Citi have made another hire from industry.  Anand Govind was until recently the CFO of O9 Solutions, a cloud computing company.  But before that he was a tech industry banker for JPM and MS, and now he’s going to be an MD focused on AI and software company coverage. (Bloomberg)

A little bit of care is needed in reading the headline this story – Ben Frost of Goldman Sachs is a “retail banker” in the sense of being an investment banker covering the consumer and retail sector, not a “retail banker” in the sense of ever having been involved with the Marcus or credit card ventures. (Reuters)

The Financial Conduct Authority now wants its regulators to spend 50% of their time regulating in the office, rather than regulating from home. (Financial News)

“The Narrative” is a quite unusual sounding documentary, premiering at a Swiss film festival this week and featuring Kweku Adoboli, the former UBS trader who was responsible for over $2bn of undisclosed losses.  The film doesn’t give much context for what happened, but allows Adoboli to give his side of the story, and shows his new life in Ghana, after being deported from London at the end of his jail sentence. (BlueWin)

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