What's New About the Second Edition?

The first edition of this book grew out of my long-held conviction that there was a “gap in the market” for a book about the inner workings of the investment part of the City. Fortunately, a considerable number of people with an interest in investment and the City shared my original “gap” perception. So, less than two years’ after my initial foray into print, here it is, fully updated, revised and extended (an additional section on the mergers and acquisitions business---an area I know well from personal experience).

In the financial world, change comes thick and fast. The stock market, institutional investors and investment analysts have all hit the headlines in the last two years---not necessarily for the right reasons! This new edition takes full account of these developments, particularly the analysis and conclusions of the landmark Myners Review on institutional investment and the fascinating – if less than edifying – insight into fund management provided by the Unilever court case against Merrill Lynch Investment Management in the last weeks of 2001.

Since the abrupt end of the “dot com” boom, the role of investment analysts has (rightly) been the subject of much public scrutiny. Hedge funds have risen from nowhere to become a potent force in the market place. I have, accordingly, updated and substantially extended the chapter on the securities business and how it works. More generally – and beyond the scope of this book – the collapse of Enron has cast a shadow over the entire financial system, calling into question the validity of the raw numbers that are fed daily to the City’s army of information-crunchers: what I call “The Great Expectation Machine”.