Investment Banking History - National and Comparative Issues (19th-21st centuries)

The recent financial and banking crisis did reveal the discrepancy between internal management rules and the demands for stability within the divisions of corporate and investment banking by universal banks or within pure investment banks. Their mastership of risks did not balance the variety and breadth of operations, at the expense of transparent and well-structured balance sheets. The book intends fuel comparisons between historical national case studies and present evolution of investment banking. It will foster arguments about the management of risks, about the portfolio of skills of investment bankers, about the role of senior bankers. Two chapters of issues and of present assessments help giving sense to history through the mobilisation of concepts crossing decades till the recent years, so as to favour deeper thinking about the very nature and good practices of investment banking.

Contents: Hubert Bonin/Carlo Brambilla: Varieties in Investment Banking Evolutions and Functions – Janette Rutterford: Everard Hambro, Between Investment Banker and Investor – Peter Hertner: Investors, Investment Banks, and Governments between Cooperation and Competition. A Short History of the Salonica-Constantinople Railway (1892-1914) – Juan Flores: Moral Hazard and Investment Banking. Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence from the Baring Crisis (1880-1890) – Piet Geljon/Ton de Graaf: Investment Banking in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The Dutch Way – Hubert Bonin: The Resurgence of French Investment Banks after WWII (1948-1960). Competitive Edge and Groundbreaking Innovation – Carlo Brambilla: Fading Investment Banking? Italian Banks before the Second World War – Giadomenico Piluso: Maturity Mismatch and Allocative Efficiency. Long-term Financing and Investment Banking in Italy, 1936-1975 – Luis Javier Coronas-Vida: The Spanish Investment Banks. From Financial Intermediaries to Company Shareholders – Sofya Salomatina: Investment Banking in Russia, 1890-1917. From Pioneering Finance to Universal Banking – Gergana Taneva: French Investment Banking and Bulgaria from the 1880s until 1930s. Portfolio of Skills and Strategies – Christopher Kobrak: Reconfiguring Multinational Banking. Deutsche Bank’s Acquisition of Bankers Trust as Seen after a Turbulent Decade – Hubert Bonin/Carlo Brambilla: Overall Survey of Authors’ Contributions to the History of Investment Banking – Hubert Bonin: From History to Present Times. Investment Banking at Stake? – Hubert Bonin: Final Considerations: Are Investment Bankers the Issue?