A thanksgiving service for Sir Brian Pitman, former chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group and leading banker of his generation, will be held next week in St Paul’s Cathedral. As well as his life, it will commemorate the era when high street banks were run by high street bankers.
The appointment of Bob Diamond as the next chief executive of Barclays, and reshuffle at the top of HSBC that could lead to the ascension of Stuart Gulliver, also an investment banker, shows how things have changed. Investment bankers have not only bounced back from the 2008 financial crisis but are more powerful than ever.
Marcus Agius, Barclays’ chairman (and a former investment banker himself) did his best to play the shift down this week, describing Mr Diamond’s background as “incidental . . . irrelevant”. The fact that Mr Diamond’s Barclays Capital division now produces the bulk of the 300-year-old bank’s profits is, however, as relevant as it gets.