By the way notice how I have stopped talking about Jenny? To me she is nothing. Just an attractive intern with excellent skin and an outstanding figure.

She means nothing to me. I have moved on 100%.

18 May 2007

7.19 p.m.

Just managed to escape from office.

In the morning it looked like I’d have to permanently pack my bags and move to the office for the foreseeable future. In the morning Dominic called me over and told me to do a retrospective analysis of Lederman’s balance sheets, P&L statements, cash flows and all other annexures in the annual reports.

I should have said ok and just walked off. And worked on a 3-year analysis. But then I was overcome by childish enthusiasm—like a bloody first year analyst—and I asked him how many years he wanted me to go back. He thought about it. And then asked Rahul to ‘weigh in with his opinion’. (Rahul and Dominic share a cubicle these days. Personally I like my individual cubicle. How can you think strategically when someone else is watching?? At least I can’t.)

Rahul asked me how old Lederman was. (Why are we even staffing people who don’t have the client profile by heart? These are basic consulting fundas. Sometimes I don’t get my company.)

I quickly recapped Lederman history for him. Technically the company dates back to 1879. But in terms of publicly published financial reports it goes back to 1956 when it was first listed in London. Dominic asked Rahul if there was any merit in analysing numbers more than 15 years old. Rahul asked me for inputs.

It was a good question, despite Rahul being an asshole, and I thought about it for a few moments. On the one hand the world banking industry has undergone a lot of changes in the last couple of decades. So it might not make sense to compare Lederman’s performance in 2007 to how they performed in 1960 or 1970. Those days are over. Personally I think global banking has reached a level of stability that will be untouched for decades. These guys are going to mint billions of dollars.

However doing a long-term retrospective analysis could help to profile Lederman. It can give us a very good idea of how the company has changed over the years. It can show trends in terms of where money is coming from, where it is going and what are the good and bad bits of the business.

So from a purely consulting perspective it does probably make sense to study as many years as possible.

The only problem here is that that kind of retrospective analysis takes a lot of time and energy. First you need to find all that data. Then you need to enter everything into Excel. And then make charts. After that comes the analysis and presentations and discussions … And frankly I am getting fed up of leaving office so late every day.