My name is Mark Clare and I am an investment banker working in New Zealand.
There is a lot of misconception and misunderstanding about the work I do. My industry is partly to blame for this situation. There is not a lot of “openness” in investment banking (or “IB” as it is called by insiders). But this is the 21st century – and everything is in a state of flux.
I am building a 21st century investment banking firm – I want it to be the first choice of anyone seeking corporate finance advice in New Zealand. This blog (a term I am not afraid of) is part of that process.
New Zealand is a country that I am proud to come from and proud to be working to move forward. New Zealanders are self-reliant do-it-themselves types. Often in our professional lives this means we struggle to seek assistance. Internationally corporate and government entities don’t have this same struggle. I have seen companies fail to achieve high-quality outcomes because they did not seek advice. For one sector (investment banking) I am going to try and explain why the right advice can add value. I am going to cover four main themes:
- I am going to explain how I (Mark Clare) think about various companies and issues in the New Zealand market.
- What it is that we do in investment banking and how we work to assist clients to achieve high-quality outcomes (we hope).
- Try and explain some corporate finance terminology and concepts.
- Some random things – things that I like and are important to me.
I also need to have some rules to make this work at my end:
- I am not providing investment advice on this blog. If you are looking for investment advice – go and find an adviser that will assess your needs and make recommendations accordingly. I am not that person and don’t want to be that person.
- I will tell some “war-stories” – but I will carefully protect the confidentiality of the clients that I work with. I take my responsibilities with clients very seriously. If you are looking for the inside scoop on mergers and acquisitions transactions – not going to happen here. My clients rely on me for discretion – and doing this blog at all is a risk to my day-to-day professional activities.
- I will be open about conflicts of interest. If someone asks me about something – and I have a conflict, I will disclose that.
- The views on this blog are my own (unless I have someone write a guest post). This blog is hosted on a firm’s site and will, I recognise, be linked with that firm. However, the views (and errors) are mine alone.
I am also going to keep each post to 500 words or less. So let’s see what happens…