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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (44701)	9/27/2003 4:33:26 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Big Kahuna The Chairman of our parent company Allianz, is coming down from Germany today so the trading floor has come to a near standstill. I'm just trying to see how long the laws of nature can be subverted with 200 traders in their best suits and manners. Of course considering I might become a CDS trader soon enough I feel I have to grow a beer belly and start adding some colour to my daily language. At any rate the reason everyone's is dressed to the nines is because my investment bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, has had a complicated relationship with our parent firm, Allianz, which is one of the largest insurance companies in the world. At the onset of the recession, way back in the 00's, Dresdner bank (one of the top two German banks) went on a spending spree. It first bought up the stuffy English merchant bank, Kleinwort Benson, and then took on the snazzy American M&A boutique, Wasserstein & Perrela. In the end to complicate matters just a bit further Dresdner itself was bought up by the leviathan Allianz and that's where we get our present coporate structure (and name from). The ethos of the firm is American merit, British networks and German efficiency which suits me just fine. However since we bought just before the recession we paid large premiums for overvalued businesses, which is why we needed Allianz to provide us with some critical financial support. Allianz, as an insurance & pension firm, had literally billions of dollars just slushing around (like the Japanese) which they figured could be wisely invested with an investment bank of DrKW's calibre. The only problem is that they timed it such a manner that we were restructuring in our firm and suffered a run of declining profits so it was pretty bad timing for them. I guess my company's bosses are hoping that the visit from the chairman will solidify their commitment to us and ensure that DrKW has the backing of one of the largest companies in the world. Zachary Latif 08:43