Only ‘wimps’ phone it in: Why Wall Street bankers are hitting the road again

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A person walks through a terminal at LaGuardia Airport in New York on March 6. Wall Streeters are not only back at their offices, they are traveling again at a time when many other companies continue to keep their workers at home.

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And although video conferencing has improved dramatically and made Wall Street more efficient, veteran dealmakers like Knee, who is also a professor at Columbia Business School, argue there is still no substitute for in-person negotiation.

During in-person meetings, Knee, who previously worked at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, pays attention to body language and look out for subtle clues.

When he asks tough questions about sensitive subjects, including compensation and sales targets, he is interested in the answers, of course, but he also wants to see how an executive reacts to the interrogation.

«You can do that on Zoom,» Knee says. «But it’s very hard to see the sweat dripping down their forehead.»

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People move through LaGuardia Airport before the start of the Fourth of July weekend on July 2 in New York City. Bankers say negotiating deals in person is usually better than through video chats like Zoom.

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James Davies, who heads the investment bank for the United States at Deutsche Bank, is a senior banker who is traveling again.

He took a three-week trip to the United Kingdom earlier this year to meet with clients and colleagues he hadn’t seen in person for months. It was a different experience.

«I, despite having been vaccinated twice, was tested eight times,» Davies recalls. «I had to quarantine in one place for five days when in London.»

But all the headache was worth it, Davies says: There’s nothing like establishing trust when meeting someone face-to-face.

«I think that is especially important if you are looking to actually sign a deal with someone,» he says.

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Flight information is shown on an electronic board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on the eve of a Memorial Day weekend on May 28 in Arlington, Virginia. Though Wall Street is resuming business travel, they are being more careful about which trips they undertake.

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But now, he is trying to figure out how often he and his colleagues will leave the office. He says virtual negotiations have made it possible for his team to get more deals done, and that has lowered costs considerably.

«I think the landscape has changed,» he says. «It has not eviscerated the need for business travel, but it has dramatically reshaped it.»

Still, nobody on Wall Street expects virtual meetings to replace business trips altogether any time soon. It’s tradition, after all, and on Wall Street, change takes time.

«I think that’s going to be a process that’s going to take a while for people to come to grips with,» Knee says.

• corporate travel
• investment banking
• deals
• M&A
• business travel
• mergers
• banking
• Wall Street