Talk:List of investment banks
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Given that the list has its own page now, it might be a good idea to catagorize all the banks into regions/countries? Suicup 14:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
The old list was very confused. I reorganized the entities listed into three categories, independent investment banks, financial conglomerates and other. Many of the entities listed, e.g. Banc of America Securities, are in fact investment banking subsidiaries of large financial conglomerates. For example, Bank of America, which provides services that are completely unrelated to investment banking: deposit banking, commercial loans, insurance, mortgages, etc. In general, many of the finance entries have an amateurish nature.
The third category should be policed. I did not bother to check some of these, half of which I have never heard of. They could be two-bit players whose names are here for free advertising. It would be helpful to describe what each of the listed entities does, e.g. Cantor Fitzgerald is a trader in government securities, N.M. Rothschild is (I believe) in asset management. The key point is they are not investment banks in any classic sense - they do not underwrite the offering of securities, which in my view is what defines an investment bank.
Cbmccarthy 01:53, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
My concern is with respect to the Former Investment Banks category. The list is hardly exhaustive and I can't see that it ever will be. There are literally thousands of defunct firms who aren't mentioned. Moreover, among those thousands, are many, many firms, who were absorbed several times, thus technically warranting separate mention. For example, we could mention 1) Carl M. Loeb, 2) Rhodes and Company, 3) Carl M. Loeb Rhodes and Company, 4) Shearson Loeb Rhodes, etc., etc. In addition, should we really be titling this page as "List of Investment Banks, we're already well beyond the scope that that name would imply. ButtonwoodTree 02:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I only just saw this. I agree that it eventually becomes ridiculous if you cover all the permutations of mergers and name changes, or every defunct investment bank that ever existed. The same can be said of the current list of independent investment banks, which currently seems to contain a lot of insignificant players (these may be some free advertising for such players?). However, that is also the inherent nature of lists, and it should be manageable if it is monitored and limited to significant institutions. In terms of moving the list, I would say, ideally, this list should be moved to an article called the History of Capital Markets... if that article were ever written. My core bibliography for writing such an article would be the House of Morgan by Ron Chernow (US capital markets history), the House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson (continental European capital markets history) and The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism (UK capital markets history). Speaking of UK, right now, the list omits the whole panoply of significant UK merchant banks and stockbrokers that disappeared after 1986 following deregulation. I will try to add them.
Cbmccarthy 14:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Who should be on these lists?
I just went through the four lists on this page and culled various additions that appeared to have been added for free advertising. I would propose limiting the lists to those institutions that have at least a Wikipedia-compliant stub. Actually, if each investment banking stub or article is properly categorized, a separately managed list like this will be unnecessary because people can just select the category.
Cbmccarthy 15:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
