A recent Goldman Sachs report suggests that JPMorgan Chase should potentially consider breaking up its business, a trend that big banks are beginning to lean towards. Some corporate banking CEOs, such as Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein, explained that many financial services may be beginning to rethink what their business models should look like in the near future. For one, some regulators want to see the big banks broken down into smaller ones. However, breaking up large institutions isn’t always easy, because once they are broken up, the banks still need to remain sufficient enough to support themselves.
Gary Parr, Vice Chairman of Lazard, knows a great deal about the inner workings of both big banking institutions and smaller, boutique financial services like others modeled after Lazard. Before Kenneth Jacobs became the current CEO of Lazard, Parr was once a likely candidate for the position. He recently contributed to the conversation about the future of corporate banks while lending his insights to CNBC in regards to the Goldman Sachs report.
Said Parr, “For the very large institutions, there is an obvious dis-economy of scale, and that’s capital. They have to carry so much capital.” Parr went on to explain that deal watcher shouldn’t wait for significant changes in the construction of big banks for at least another two years.
Not only might banks break up in terms of their portfolios, with some specializing in retail or wholesale, they might also break up in terms of location—with some deciding to split and move geographically.
“These institutions are very large, very complex and hard to manage, so it takes a very special management team to figure out all those components to make them work effectively,” Parr explained to CNBC. “It’s probably going to be relatively quiet period for a time as people adjust. And then look for a lot to happen, because a lot needs to happen.”
