The Ranger went to visit Stephen Swift and Richard Hill at SG's Tower Hill offices.
While admiring the beautiful view of London's most historic place of torture and execution, the Ranger noticed a square of black electric tape on the floor. Hill bent down to try and peel it off but soon realised that the task was fruitless and the tape was stuck fast.
The group laughed at the thrifty repair of the carpet.
But later, the Ranger reflected that given the tough outlook Europe’s banks, perhaps the masking tape had been put there on purpose to show how prudent and economical SG could be.
But again, it could also just be a piece of plastic stuck to a carpet.
At a separate meeting last week, the Ranger heard what may be her favourite loan market anecdote — when many years ago, a hungover Credit Suisse employee fell asleep in the steam room of the office gym and was poked awake by his angry boss looking for the missing employee.
In people moves, another senior loans figure has jumped ship to a different bank — Paul Gibbon, managing director in leveraged capital markets at UBS, is headed to SMBC, a week after the Ranger reported that Sean Malone is moving away from another Japanese bank, from BTMU to RBS.
Gibbon had 10 years under his belt at UBS and will start his new job at SMBC in May.
While journalists are well accustomed to be sharply dismissed by their contacts, one GC journalist received a spectacular put-down recently. He rang a contact and asked if he was free to talk and the contact replied: “Not now. I’m having a cappuccino.”
Luckily the Ranger has yet to receive such a snubbing herself.
