Tis the season to be cash rich

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Tis the season to be cash rich

HK$ Notes

In a fit of generosity, I’d asked a couple of broker pals over for dinner. TaiTai was fussing over the chef, who was fussing over dinner. The organic salmon we’d flown in from Scotland hadn’t arrived and the Taittinger was corked.

With disaster impending, I decided I needed to be as far removed as possible. What could be better than a few sharpeners down at the club?

Settling down to my third whisky I noticed the place was unusually quiet. I panicked. Was there some sort of capital markets calamity I had missed? Then it dawned on me — bonus season. Ah, that is the one week when everyone in the business polishes their shoes and straightens their ties. Your boss suddenly becomes your best friend and you are the most earnest, hardest working man in the place.

As a young man I used to spend most of the year dreaming of that day — the parties, the cars, the girls (long before TaiTai, of course). And boy did I know how to have a good time. It helped that we got our bonuses in cash — none of this deferred nonsense that passes for an incentive these days. 

The Wolf of Wall Street? Bah, Leo has nothing on me, the Hound of Hong Kong.


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