Richard Greensted: Custody's flawed business model.

Financial News, April, 2003

Byline: Richard Greensted

The quarterly results season always produces interesting linguistic acrobatics. Take JP Morgan: in describing its less than spectacular performance in private equity in the first quarter of 2003, it said "total net private equity gains were negative $230m". For gains, read losses.Whichever spin doctor wrote the section on the bank's securities services business was less keen on obfuscation, however.

"Investor services revenues declined 10% from the previous year as the business continues to be adversely affected by difficult market conditions resulting in reduced deposit balances, custody fees, foreign exchange revenue and securities lending activity," the report said. That pretty much covers everything. To remedy the...

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