Barclay's Capital President Jerry del Missier speaks to MBA students

On Dec. 5, Queen's MBA students heard first-hand from a grad immersed in the global financial crisis. Jerry del Missier, BSc’85, MBA’87, President of Barclays Capital in New York, gave a wide-ranging talk that covered the highs – and lows – of the meltdown.

He began by describing the origins of the credit crisis in the U.S. mortgage market and how it snowballed to a seizure of global liquidity. The collapse of trust that followed caused money to flee to “safety,” resulting in the unwinding of leverage.

“The investment bank model has been completely wiped out…we’re still dealing with the consequences.” Jerry predicts more bad news: unemployment doubling or tripling, a significantly weaker US dollar, and even a 1930s Depression scenario. “I’m not ruling that out,” he says.

Still, there is some good news. He said those who have cash are in a great position to purchase quality assets now at distressed prices. The current commodity bear market is short term and will rebound, as will the current difficulties facing emerging economies such as India, Brazil and China, he told the class.