Why I’m buying boring banks

Former fund manager Jonathan Compton hasn’t owned a banking share since before the financial crisis – but he’s looking to buy now.

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Northern Rock: business booming for the wrong reasons

I have few skills, but possibly my best has been to act as an early warning radar for bank implosions. This ability to sniff out disaster arose, I think, for two reasons. The first was from witnessing so many collapses at first hand: Hong Kong's entire banking system in the 1980s; America's Savings and Loans companies; the Asian bank crash of 1997 (before which I personally called any client placing large bank buy orders and urged them to reconsider); then the crash of 2008. By June 2007, no client of mine held a bank share and nor have I since.

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Jonathan Compton was MD at Bedlam Asset Management and has spent 30 years in fund management, stockbroking and corporate finance.