THE TELEGRAPH: Gordon Brown appeared to have failed in his attempt to gauge Wall Street's feelings on the thorny issue of bonuses and capital levels ahead of the G20 after he was unable to attract any heavyweight bankers to a specially convened meeting in New York.
Although invitations to a number of Wall Street's biggest banks are known to have been sent, only one senior US banker, 52-year Citigroup veteran Bill Rhodes – who stepped down as chairman of Citigroup North America in July but remains on its board – attended yesterday's economic roundtable. That compares poorly to the two previous such meetings the Prime Minister has hosted in the city during the credit crisis, when big names including star hedge fund manager George Soros and JP Morgan Chase chairman Jamie Dimon showed up.
Instead, the meeting largely drew US representatives of British-based banks, with the nine attendees including Barclays Americas chairman Archibald Cox, whose role is essentially networking, HSBC US boss Paul Lawrence, and David Stileman, Standard Chartered's US chief executive. Business minister Baroness Vadera, one of the PM's closest economic aides, was also present.
One attendee, who asked not to be named, said that the Prime Minister did more listening than he did talking, while another banker who was invited but chose not to go said that the UK's stance on bonuses may explain the lightweight attendance. Mr Brown said last week "there is no going back to the bonus structures of the past". >>> James Quinn, US Business Editor | Wednesday, September 23, 2009
