|
February
23, 2001 – One of the reasons American firms
are so dominant in the investment banking industry in Europe is because
European companies are finding it very hard – if not impossible –
to cross national borders, said Michael Carpenter, head of Citibank’s
Global Relationship Bank, at an address at IESE in Barcelona on Friday,
February 23.
“The idea of a French company hiring a German advisor to handle a
transaction in Italy is incomprehensible,” he said. “And so,
in a funny way, the U.S. firms are neutral. Everybody hates them –
but less than the alternative.”
As Europe becomes less “nationalistic”, financial services firms
will find it easier to do business outside their own borders, and focus
on becoming more pan-European, said Carpenter, who said Europe has become
one of Citibank’s fastest-growing areas.
The major Spanish banks have been “smart” in recognizing the
limitations of operating in Europe, setting their sights instead on Latin
America, he said, where the industry is less sophisticated and where a
common language can provide tremendous benefits.
Carpenter, a native of London, who holds one of Citibank’s top management
positions and formerly worked under Jack Welch at General Electric, provided
his perspective on the latest developments in the world’s banking
industry to IESE MBA students. He stressed to the students that the financial
services sector is being affected first and foremost by consolidation
– an activity in which Citigroup has a proven track record.
Successful consolidation requires a careful “socialization process”
and a “series of early wins” by the new partnership, he said
.
“When you announce your strategy, everyone says, ‘that’s
great!” Carpenter said. “That lasts for five minutes, because
as soon as you’ve done that, every single employee has a very simple
series of questions: how does my job change? Who am I going to work for
now? Who’s going to work for me?”
Despite the enormous size of the company, which today includes such leading
brands as Citibank, Salomon Smith Barney and Traveler’s, Citigroup
maintains a highly entrepreneurial culture, he said.
“That sounds like a crazy thing to say for a large company”,
he said. But “we have no concept of what it is like to run a bureaucracy
and have no desire to do so. So we run it in a very entrepreneurial fashion.”
He called his company “a $14 billion start-up.”
Carpenter oversees Citibank’s Global Relationship Banking unit, which
performs business transactions for multinational companies and their subsidiaries.
Prior to joining Citibank in 1983, he worked in several top management
positions at General Electric, including Vice President of GE Capital
Corporation, a diversified financial services subsidiary of General Electric
and Vice President of Corporate Business Development and Planning.
L.Tatge
|
