After the City: What a relief to be out!
6 Nov 2002
Candia Peterson spent 16 years in the City of London as a broker, most recently as head of Japanese equities at ABN Amro. Now retired and planning a new life in France, she wouldn't dream of going back to banking.....except just possibly for a lot of money
"Of course, if some idiot is prepared to pay me a silly amount of money, then I may come back!"
These were the words - or words to that effect - quoted on Bloomberg against the name of a gentleman, well known in his field, who was retiring early after several years in broking.
He was a man I knew quite well, having worked with him in my first job in the mid-eighties.
I had subsequently followed his career and been well aware of his retirement - and that famous quote - when, somewhat to my surprise, my august employer of the time decided to become that '"idiot"' and brought (or should that be bought?) him away from the golf course.
He became my direct manager.
My immediate reaction to the news was to ring up the man who did PR for the bank and suggest that he ply someone at Bloomberg with drink, to get the story with the quote removed from the screens.
It never was, and the arrival of my new boss was greeted with hilarity by clients and competition alike.
I welcomed his arrival. I believed he was a white knight who would rescue our thriving little business from the damage wrought upon it by our European retail banking managers, who understood little and cared less about what we were trying to do.
So I was stunned to discover barely six months later that he had, in fact, been brought back to deliver the death knell and close us down.
Thus I found myself thrust into early retirement. After 18 years as a stock broker in an unforgiving Japanese market, I cannot honestly say that I was overly distressed.
This was my third consecutive closure in five jobs and I had had enough. Enough of the market, enough of broking and certainly enough of fickle employers whose business philosophy seemed to draw more from the Hokey Kokey than from common sense.
My only sadness was for the team I had built from scratch over three years.
Most have gone on to greater things, but there is always that terrible lump that comes to the throat when one is first sacked and then asked to go sack the little band one has nurtured and grown, feeling responsible for the situation in which they find themselves.
The phone rang off the hook with headhunters for the first several weeks of my retirement. None had anything palatable to offer - many simply wanted the lowdown on my former colleagues and often competitors.
I was, however, temped by an invitation to set up a hedge fund with two former team mates. But, on realising that this was an unhappy and futile task for three ex-brokers with no fund management track record, I gave up on this as a bad job.
It was a cathartic stepping stone for one hurled unceremoniously on the streets without notice.
I got to keep a log-in on my umbilical Bloomberg and I got to imagine for a while that I was still in 'The Industry', chatting with my friends, keeping in touch with the market, pretending to buy and sell stocks in our dummy portfolio and, even - oh joy after all those years - being taken out, (as opposed to doing the taking) for lunch by brokers.
Gradually, however, it dawned on me that Out was better than In. That my enforced retirement was and should be just that.
As realisation awoke, I began to embrace it and as I embraced it, a new world opened up in front of me. Of course the large red-brick villa in London SW15 would have to go and school fees would have to be begged, borrowed or stolen - but oh, the opportunities!
I am fortunate that my husband runs his own semi-virtual business from home and is eminently mobile. So it is that we have decided to decamp to the French Alps and make a life for ourselves away from the hustle and bustle of City life.
Number one child is at boarding school and number two child will be attending the local French primary from after Christmas (she doesn't yet speak a word of French but the school has a very good integration programme).
We will jointly run hubby's business from home and I think I shall dabble in a little property development in the village. We shall ski in the winter and roam the Alps in the summer.
We shall take it in turns to commute to England for school soccer matches and concerts, taking advantage of our proximity to Geneva and the new age of cheap air travel and, most of all, we shall live life to the full without regrets.
Of course, if some idiot wants to offer me a silly amount of money to return, I shall consider their offer with interest and they may contact me through my email address.
In the meanwhile, my watchword is - 'No coming back'.
candiapeterson@hotmail.com