Investment Banking Monkey - The All Nighter

Christmas usually comes once a year, but this is your lucky year, and Christmas came early – you’re going to be taken to a meeting with Frank, at Kruelberg’s Mayfair offices. Your attendance has already been confirmed. You naturally feel excited to be given the honour of meeting the great Frank Johnson, who although is really a nobody at Kruelberg, is a nobody at KRUELBERG. The fully staffed team the firm is sending for a meeting with one nobody, Frank, is headed by Al Sikowsky, an executive director in the private equity group who is desperately trying to make a move to the buyside. Al wants to kiss Frank’s ass as much as possible in the hope of frank putting in a good word about him at Kruelberg. He was the first to agree to the firm’s resources being used to cur frank’s account6ants’ and lawyers’ fees as much as possible, and he’s the crackpot banker who’s never been in at the junior level, so he has no idea where the fuckups come from, what happens in the office after 8pm and how absolutely evident it is to everyone else that he’s a muppet beyond any figment of one’s imagination. Rupert beware, you have some serious competition in this space. Come to think about it, he actually has a great chance with frank and Kruelberg – they have a hell of a lot in common.

The meeting is on Monday morning at 9am sharp at Kruelberg’s sixth floor office in the heart of Mayfair. You’ve got all your ducks lined up in a row. You had your best suit pressed on Friday, crisp white shirt, extra starched cuffs and collars so it feels like you are wearing cardboard, you got your shoes buffed, crisp and clean and you are looking 110% i-banker my man. You know your shit, you know the answer to anything frank can possibly ask, you’re confident, you’re ready and you’re 100% there to back the team and help Kruelberg clinch the deal.

Man o man, believe it or not, you’re going to be there in the same room with Frank Johnson. This is the man. The Kruelberg man. You’re going to be shooting the shit with the Kruelbarg man, the client, in their offices, on their own turf. Yeah! This is the kind of master of the universe that doors swing open before he even thinks he wants to go through them. He picks up the phone to an investment bank and bankers jump at his every word. He says jump, the firm asks how high. The firm’s team is sitting in the conference room, waiting for frank to arrive. A secretary comes in, offers tea and coffee and sweet smelling pastries for breakfast and announces that frank is on his way in to the office and will join them directly. The tension builds. Anticipation. Excitement. You feel like a kid on Christmas eve, who can’t wait the next few hours until its morning and you can open your presents. You hear footsteps in the corridor. They get closer. And closer. It must be Frank. Surely, it must be the man. Coming to shoot the shit with you. They get closer. You focus and tune your ears in the direction of the sound. You pause, as you can’t believe your ears. As the footsteps approach, you hear at first a faint, and then louder and louder sound. It’s as if alongside his approach, there is a tune playing in the background, getting closer with his footsteps. You focus more, and recognise the tune. It’s eye of the tiger. You tremble in excitement and anticipation as you expect the doors to burst open and the grand figure of Frank Johnson to appear behind the blasting sound of eye of the tiger. As the doors open, you are breathless as the contour of Frank begins to appear out of the shadows of the corridor. And…yes. Frank does come out of the shadows. Your colleagues smile as they exchange amused glances at the look on your face. It’s been a few moments since he walked in and you still cannot imagine how this BSD, master of the universe, Kruelberg Kravis principal is much more of a Danny DeVito than a Silvester Stallone. He’s short, not fat but has the strong signs of a beerbelly, strategically positioned behind his shirt and creeping over his belt. He’s got a bald patch developing and is wearing an expensive but crumpled shirt.

You are at ease as you finally manage to smile at Frank thinking, oh, I will get you back Frank Johnson.