Word: banking
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With much of the global banking industry knocked off its feet lately, the steady march favored by C. Hoare & Co. offers a timely lesson in the art of financial survival. Tripped up by risky assets linked to the soured U.S. housing market, big banks have been forced to write off more than $100 billion in recent months. Denied credit, others have imploded. Sporting the colors of old-school banking, C. Hoare & Co. has sidestepped the pileup. In a time of chaos, says Sebastian Dovey, managing partner at Scorpio Partnership, a wealth-management consultancy, the 336-year-old bank "symbolizes sustainability...
...banking has become mind-bogglingly complex, and the credit debacle has made it clear that many supposedly savvy bankers failed to grasp the scale of the risks they were taking. Tiny C. Hoare & Co. - pretax profit for the year to last April was a modest $32 million, up 8% from the previous year - has prospered over the centuries by keeping it simple. Two-thirds of its income still derives from providing rock-solid banking services - deposit-taking or loans, say - to its wealthy customers through just a pair of London branches. (Investment or financial-planning advice and help with...
...risk you have of a reputational accident because you weren't able to oversee [the business] properly." So, at roughly 10,000-strong, C. Hoare & Co.'s customer base has reached its limits. Those that do make it in tend to be very well-heeled: investment portfolios at the bank average $1.5 million, while basic account holders maintain balances of anywhere from $2 million in the black to similar amounts in the red. But it's not enough to be rich. Clients must also "be extremely well introduced and have impeccable credentials," says Hoare. New money may be hotly courted...
Those that have made the grade appreciate the bank's blend of snob appeal and personal service. In a recent survey of U.K. private bank and wealth-management customers published by Market-Dynamics Research & Consulting (MDRC), C. Hoare & Co. achieved a client-satisfaction score of 82. Industry wide, that rate slumped below 60, the lowest in years. Common complaints: poor communication and rapid turnover in bankers assigned to manage relationships with clients. With a fifth of C. Hoare & Co.'s 250 staff clocking up 20 years in the job, the bank pledges a level of personal attention not seen elsewhere...
...more than a decade. The company now has 50 million subscribers in Asia, 17 times its number in Norway. The area now accounts for some 30% of Telenor's $17 billion in annual revenues, and will generate 36% in a couple of years, according to estimates by investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort. Asia, says Arild Nysaether, telecoms analyst at investment bank Fondsfinans in Oslo, is simply "the most important part of Telenor." And it's a point not lost on bigger rivals. France Télécom, Europe's third largest operator, said in mid-April it was looking into...