Straight to Hell

by John LeFevre

  Corporate executives are just not cut from the same cloth as investment bankers, so the client festivities usually wrap up by midnight. From there I’ll get into the elevator with the clients, talk about what a pivotal day we have coming up, drop them off on their floor, and then double back downstairs. (Never stay on the same floor as a client; a shared stroll to the elevator at 7 a.m. with a UK finance director and two prostitutes taught me that lesson, a situation that was made even more awkward by the fact that the hookers were his.) By the time I manage to shed the deadweight, I have arrangements to meet anyone I can—friends, colleagues, competitors, or even other clients for more drinks. Having played the part of babysitter all day, this is my chance to blow off some steam. My mission is to push myself to the limit of what I can handle and still be able to function the following day, a formula that I don’t always get quite right. Deviant proclivities tend to set the pace; however, I generally try to work my way back to the hotel for a civilized nightcap before 3 a.m., when we can sit back in the lobby bar and watch the whores on parade as they escort the drunken businessmen back up to their rooms. I don’t think there is anything in this world quite as brazenly entrepreneurial as a prostitute soliciting me in the corridor of a hotel, just as she’s leaving some guy’s room and I’m staggering toward mine. I know a few guys who have made that trade, but the “hot pocket” isn’t my thing.

  To kick off a roadshow day, the client breakfast ordinarily starts downstairs at 7:30 a.m. Having already scarfed down two coffees and some waffles in my room, this is when I’ll deliberately order a jasmine tea and a fruit plate just to make a point to the client that I’m a serious and disciplined professional. I usually accompany that with a quick line about how shitty the hotel gym is. “The treadmill shakes too much at high speeds” is a fan favorite. The client is almost always impressed.

  Our first investor meeting, and my third coffee of the day, starts at 9 a.m. Four hours, three meetings, one shitty investor group lunch, and an unknown number of coffees later, we’re just halfway through the day. Come 6 p.m., it’s finally time to head to the airport. I’m fucking exhausted, and I feel like shit. It is the end of yet another tedious day of the roadshow. Thankfully, all that stands between me and the warm embrace of an evening in Madrid is a two-hour flight.

  For this roadshow, given the schedule of meetings and travel logistics, it makes sense to travel by private plane. On a commercial flight, with some basic preparation, you can make sure you aren’t seated anywhere near a more senior colleague or a client. Instead of working or reading the latest issue of Institutional Investor or International Financing Review, you can watch a movie, get some sleep, and, most important, have a few drinks. The best part of any airport lounge or first-class cabin is that no matter what time of day it is, it’s generally socially acceptable to drink. Sadly, our travel arrangements today afford me no such opportunities for a much-needed elixir.

  I’m a really nervous flyer to begin with, and I am immediately reminded of the endless number of statistics that say flying private is substantially more dangerous than flying commercial, not to mention all the anecdotal evidence running through my mind, thanks to the Discovery Channel. As exhausted as I am, I don’t think too much about it and quickly try to settle into my seat for the easy jaunt to Spain.

  Just over halfway through the flight, all the coffee in my stomach feels like it’s percolating its way into my lower intestine. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, and my internal body clock comforts me with the knowledge that my next BM should be right around ten minutes after hotel check-in. After all, I haven’t dropped heat on a plane in about ten years, and there’s no reason to think that streak will end on a relatively short trip on a private jet.

  I hunker down and focus on other things, like playing Snake on my Matrix edition Nokia. Twenty minutes pass, but feel like an hour. We then start to experience, even by my standards as a seasoned traveler, some pretty violent turbulence. With each bounce, I have to fight my body, trying not to shit my pants. Thirty minutes to landing, maybe forty-five, I try to tell myself, every jostle a gamble I can’t afford to lose.

  On a plane like this, the flight attendant isn’t really as much an attendant as she is someone who keeps the pilots company. Trying not to draw attention to myself, I signal to her and she heads toward me. I start to think about insurance; am I wearing boxers or boxer-briefs? I’ve got no fucking clue; I was still drunk when I got dressed this morning.

  “Excuse me, where is the bathroom, because I don’t see a door?” I ask while still devoting considerable energy to fighting off what feels like someone shook a seltzer bottle and shoved it up my ass.

  She looks at me, bemused, and says, “Well, we don’t really have one per se.” At this point, she reads my mind, and preemptively continues. “Well, technically, we have one, but it’s really just for emergencies. Don’t worry, we’re landing shortly anyway.”

  “I’m pretty sure this qualifies as an emergency,” I manage to mutter through my grimace. The turbulence outside is matched only by the cyclone that is ravaging my bowels.

  I can see the fear in her eyes as she nervously points to the back of the plane and says, “There. The toilet is there.” For a brief instant, relief passes over my face. “If you pull away the leather cushion from that seat, it’s under there. There’s a small privacy screen that pulls up around it, but that’s it.”

  At this point, I am committed. She just lit the dynamite and the mineshaft is set to blow. I turn to look where she is pointing and it makes me want to cry. I do cry, but my face is so tightly clenched that it makes no difference. The “toilet” seat she is referring to is the seat occupied by the CFO, i.e., our fucking client. Our fucking female fucking client.

  Up to this point, nobody has observed my struggle or paid much attention to my discreet exchange with the flight attendant. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” That’s all I can say as I limp toward the back like a drunk Quasimodo impersonating a penguin and begin my explanation. Of course, as soon as my competitors see me talking to the CFO, they all perk up to find out what the hell I’m doing.

  Given my fun-loving attitude thus far on the roadshow, almost everybody thinks that I’m joking. She knows right away that this is no joke and jumps up, moving quickly to where I had been sitting, which must have felt like slipping bare feet into still-warm bowling shoes, or the previously mentioned “hot pocket.”

  I now have to remove her seat top—no easy task when I can barely stand upright—the small cabin continues to bounce around, and I am valiantly fighting a gastrointestinal Mount Vesuvius. I manage to peel back the leather seat top to find a rather luxurious-looking commode, with a nice cherry or walnut frame. It has obviously never been used, ever. Why this moment of clarity comes to me, I do not know. Perhaps it is the realization that I am going to take this toilet’s virginity with a fury and savagery that is an abomination to its delicate craftsmanship and quality. I imagine some poor Italian carpenter weeping over the viciously soiled remains of his once beautiful creation. The lament lasts only a second as I am quickly brought back to reality, concentrating on the tiny muscle that stands between me and molten hot lava.

  I reach down and pull up the privacy screen with only seconds to spare before I erupt. It’s an Alka-Seltzer bomb, nothing but air and liquid spraying out in all directions—a Jackson Pollock masterpiece. The pressure is now reversed. I feel like I’m going to have a stroke; I push so hard to end the relief, the tormented sublime relief.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” My apologies do nothing to drown out the heinous noises reverberating throughout the small cabin. If that’s not bad enough, I have one more major problem. The privacy screen stops right around shoulder level. So I am sitting there, a sweaty disembodied head, in the back of the plane, on a bucking bronco of a commode, all while looking my colleagues, competitors, and clients directly in the eyes. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curt
ain” briefly comes to mind.

  I’m so close I could reach out with my left hand and rest it on the shoulder of the person adjacent to me. It’s virtually impossible for him, or any of the others—and by “others” I mean high-profile banking competitors and clients—to avert their eyes. They squirm and try not to look, pretending as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening—that they are not sharing a stall with some guy crapping his intestines out, vociferously releasing smelly, sweaty shame at one hundred feet per second. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  The

  Wild Wild East

  The first time I flew down to Jakarta, I waited one hour in immigration and then another three hours in traffic without BlackBerry reception, only to arrive at the Ministry of Finance to discuss their proposed $3 billion sovereign benchmark deal twenty minutes after our pitch ended.

  No wonder they need the money: Jakarta is a shithole.

  To avoid making the trip a complete waste, the local banking team invited me out for dinner. We started with drinks at my hotel, the Hotel Mulia. As the only locally owned five-star hotel in Jakarta, the Mulia is considered less of a terrorist target than Western hotels like the Grand Hyatt or Four Seasons.

  My local team was quite proud of having arranged to take me to one of Jakarta’s hottest and most exclusive spots for dinner. When we arrived, my first thought was that it looked like a prison—a walled compound draped with razor wire. We were greeted by several security guards, a German shepherd, and one of those guys with a primitive mirror-on-a-stick bomb detector, the mascot of the third world.

  Another guard opened the imposing gate and waved us through. As we drove inside, I was amazed—lush green gardens, tropical flowers, perfectly manicured landscaping, and elegant fountains. There was probably a koi pond too, but I was too distracted by the row of exotic cars lined up in front of the entrance: Ferrari, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Ferrari.

  The inside of the restaurant was equally striking, a minimalist Asian decor overflowing with beautiful people—models, socialites, and titans of industry, or certainly their offspring.

  While we were making our way to the bar, a stunning girl smiled and said hello to me. Not that I think I’m ugly, but that kind of thing doesn’t usually just happen to me. I had to check with my local capital markets head and host for the night. “That’s a pro, right?”

  “A hooker? Nah, man, people are just really friendly here.” He was more amused than offended.

  He wasn’t joking. What I encountered over the many drinks that followed were some of the kindest and most outgoing people I have ever met. It was explained to me that just by virtue of being at this club, we were accepted as members of the local elite. Everybody was friends with everybody.

  I went ahead and stayed an extra night: Jakarta is fucking awesome.

  Now, a year or so later, I’m flying back to work on a high-yield deal for the Mulia Group, an Indonesian property company. They own one of Jakarta’s premier shopping malls, condo towers, and, of course, the before-mentioned hotel.

  Just a few days before, I spent four tedious hours on the phone with senior officials at the Korean Development Bank, arguing over a 0.005% difference in their funding cost. Now, here I am working on a deal for an Indonesian tycoon named Djoko Tjandra, the CEO and largest shareholder of Mulia. He’s an outrageous character, chain-smoking his way through meetings and never without his Biggie Smalls Versace sunglasses, even indoors.

  It’s our job to find investors willing to lend this Bond villain $150 million.

  This is why I love working in Asia. You never know what to expect; anything goes. I’ve always embraced that aspect of my job. From the day I landed in Hong Kong, I have been constantly shifting my expectations and realigning my moral compass in every aspect of my life.

  Even innocuous events like my first closing dinner in Hong Kong were totally different from those that I have attended in New York or London. Closing dinners are a global banking tradition, where the bookrunners and clients celebrate the success of a deal in the private room of some fancy restaurant, getting drunk and handing out tombstones (Lucite deal trophies). Toward the end of dinner, a senior banker quietly made it known that the Chinese CEO wanted the party to continue at a karaoke bar. To avoid creating an embarrassing scene for the client, the female bankers were discreetly asked to excuse themselves from dinner. The young analyst next to me got a BlackBerry message from her boss: “Hey, maybe you should go home now.”

  I was used to explicit sexism from my time in London; after all, my first boss insisted on only interviewing prospective female candidates, which he called the “Office Beautification Project.” But Asia takes this to a whole new level. My boss in Hong Kong once asked me to interview a research candidate and then gleefully suggested that we should hire her because “you know, we should probably tick that box”—implying that with her butch haircut, pantsuit, and masculine demeanor, she was, in his mind, quite obviously a lesbian. “She’s good for the brochures.”

  Everything in Asia is amplified, fueled in part by the bene­fits of being an expat, with the extra compensation packages, the housing allowances, and more senior reporting lines. And because of the lingering effects of colonialism, foreigners are often treated better than the locals. Many of my Chinese friends will speak English when they make dinner reservations or if they walk into an upscale department store, because even acting like an ABC will get them better treatment. If I’m hosting a dinner in my Mid-Levels apartment, the gweilos are allowed right up, no questions asked, whereas the locals are stopped by security at the gate and then again by the Chinese doorman in the lobby, who will call up to confirm the visitor.

  When we had a company off-site in Thailand, the local employees flew Dragonair economy class, while the expats flew Cathay Pacific business class. Although the rules were subsequently changed, there’s a resentment that remains today. “How come I don’t get a housing allowance?” or “Why’d they send you from London to be our boss instead of promoting one of us?”

  In short, there are no rules and we are all part of an entitled class that is overpaid and protected. This identity cuts across the usual banking boundaries found in the United States and Europe, where bankers tend to do their jobs and go home.

  After work one evening, I’m having dinner with a group of colleagues, all of whom are Americans, at an open-air restaurant in SoHo. For no particular reason, one of our traders suggests a contest to see who can walk into the Chinese restaurant across the street and yell “Suck on my balls” the loudest. After the third guy walks in and yells, it’s my turn. By this point, I know they are going to be suspicious of any white guy walking in alone. So I patiently go through the motions of getting a table, sitting down, and ordering a beer and appetizer. Once I have alleviated all suspicion, I jump up on top of my chair and yell at the top of my lungs—“Suck on my balls”—­unequivocally winning the contest. I jump down and hightail it out of there, taking my beer with me of course.

  It’s not that bankers in New York or London are any less deviant, they just can’t get away with what we can. That’s why they are always trying to drum up any excuse to attend one of our conferences, or to convince their clients to “develop relationships with the Asia investor base” with a weeklong roadshow, where the most important meetings are with tailors, watch retailers, and karaoke companions. To echo the sentiments of a visiting managing director from New York: “Damn, it doesn’t take long in Asia before I’ve seen all your cocks.”

  In fact, my trader friend Andy’s unexpected promotion was primarily based on his ability to entertain visiting senior management, taking them on helicopter “missions” to Darlings or the Rio in Macau.

  We even had a visiting colleague from New York get drunk and hook up with one of our interns (an offense that can get you fired in New York). He was so drunk that he couldn’t remember which girl it had been—as
he said it, “They all look the same.” So the next morning in the office, he somewhat jokingly walked around the trading floor trying to identify her by the top of her head, much to the amusement of the rest of us.

  I arrived in Hong Kong in the fall of 2004, but didn’t fully understand the magnitude and pervasiveness of this entitled and deviant mentality within broader banking culture until the inaugural Asian debt syndicate Christmas dinner at the end of that year.

  That night, we take up a single long dining table in the middle of the Mandarin Grill. Representatives from every meaningful bank are in attendance—Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, ABN, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Citigroup, Barclays, Nomura, UBS, and Merrill Lynch. The only relevant bank that isn’t there is Bank of America, and as I am quickly informed, their syndicate head wasn’t invited, not just because she is a woman, but primarily because she is a “minger” and a “snoozer.”

  We start with four bottles of tequila spread out across the table and a simple rule: if you check your BlackBerry or answer your phone, you have to do a shot. This sets the pace for the evening. “Sorry, this is New York calling; I need to take this” is met by a chorus of “Do a shot, bitch.”

  Even some old boarding school tricks get resurrected. , a senior banker at Nomura, walks over to my end of the table, stands between me and the ABN banker next to me, and says, “Hey mate, did you guys get bread rolls down at this end?”

  Without thinking, I peel back the napkin, only to discover (at eye level) his freckled ginger cock and balls resting comfortably on top of the rolls. I leap out of my chair, sending it crashing to the floor and filling the dining room with the sound of the laughter and high fives.