Featured

Investment Banking and COVID-19: Highs and Lows During the Global Pandemic

Cropped shot of a young businesswoman working late on a digital tablet in an office

When the novel coronavirus first found its way into the United States of America, there was some optimism that the viral agent could be controlled. Now over a year later, we are fully understanding how difficult that concept would be. With more than 92.5 million globally confirmed COVID cases, there isn’t a place or industry on the planet that hasn’t been impacted in one way or another.

While some industries have suffered due to the coronavirus and its corresponding fallout, others have managed to hang on and even thrive. Today, we are going to take a look at how investment banking has continued to survive and thrive in what has otherwise been a tough time for companies everywhere.

Investment Banking: Life During and After COVID-19

When we look back to the 2008 and 2009 financial crisis, we can see many precursors that warned us of volatility. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see where and how the markets went so wrong. In much the same way, we can turn to information in this recent article to see that there are very many points of resilience demonstrated by today’s investment banking industry.

Corporate clients have been forced to overcome revenue and cost issues while limiting capital expenditure. These issues combined with natural market volatility and the added stress that is working from home, and it stands to reason that investment banking would struggle. That hasn’t been the case, however, as investment banking has shown incredible resilience, remaining liquid throughout fairly significant fluctuations.

Here are ways that investment banking institutions can prepare for life during and immediately after COVID-19.

1) Develop Your Strategy to Return to Work

In order to return to life as usual, businesses are going to have to develop a winning strategy that understands the dynamics of life during and after COVID-19. Deciding how to bring professionals back to the office while limiting the risk of community spread is incredibly important. This could manifest in remote meetings, assigning workers to operate from home. Take some time to develop a strategy that will put your people back where they need to be.

2) Embrace the Virtual Working Environment

Remote operations can be conducive to effective investment banking. Thanks to platforms such as Zoom, we can interface directly with our clients and colleagues to craft functional meetings. Bankers from InnerWorkings managed to produce a $177 million sale during the pandemic, thus bringing sky-high numbers to their business. Remote work offers flexible access for professionals to keep working and pushing forward, even when the rest of the world has slowed down.

While the pandemic has obviously been horrible for the global markets as well as the health of people around the world, some industries have shown resilience. Investment banking continues to show a potential profit for individuals ready and willing to take that risk during these trying times. Kim Posnett of Goldman Sachs has pointed out that today’s digital environment can lead to investors connecting from all around the world.

Hemant Kumar
Hemant Kumar is a project manager at Tridindia with more than nine years of commendable experience in writing about LMS, translation, and IT. His unmatched talent and passion for digital marketing gave him the opportunity to work as a multi-tasking project manager at TridIndia’s sister company, Link Building Corp. Today, he contributes to the world by imparting knowledge on SEO, link building and internet marketing etc., that helps business owners grow their online business.