Tough talking financier retires at 49

Matthew Greenburgh, one of the key advisers behind Royal Bank of Scotland’s $100bn (£67bn) takeover of ABN Amro and one of the City of London’s best-known corporate financiers, has retired from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Mr Greenburgh, 49, said he had planned to leave the US bank just before the credit crisis took hold in August 2007. But he delayed the move after the collapse of Northern Rock, for which he tried to find a buyer before it was forced to seek the support of the Bank of England.

He said he was looking at returning to education, possibly to do a PhD in English literature.

The outspoken Mr Greenburgh leaves after a 28-year career in banking which took off when he joined Baring Brothers in 1989.

Although Barings was not structured into groups specialising in specific sectors as is typical in banks today, while head of corporate finance Mr Greenburgh focused almost exclusively on financial institutions deals, including advising Lloyds Bank on its takeovers of Cheltenham & Gloucester and TSB in 1995.

“When I started in corporate finance, foreign banks were not a force, there were no industry specialists, no spreadsheets and only a few word processors. What hasn’t changed is the desire to compete and win – the City’s animal spirits have always been strong,” said Mr Greenburgh.

In 1998, three years after the collapse of Barings, Mr Greenburgh left its new owner ING to become Merrill Lynch’s co-head of European financial institutions group. He immediately made his mark by helping Friends Provident with its $744m takeover of London & Manchester.

Since then, he has worked on deals with a total value of $400bn, including the $4bn defence of the London Stock Exchange against four separate bidders, earning a reputation among clients as a steely takeover tactician.

But his favourite bid battle will always be advising Royal Bank of Scotland on its $35bn hostile acquisition of NatWest in 1999, which took more than a year to complete and broke new ground with RBS being three times smaller in size than its target.

It was that deal that cemented his relationship as Sir Fred Goodwin’s favourite banker and led him to advise the former RBS chief executive on the ABN Amro deal.

Mr Greenburgh’s direct style has not always made him the most popular man in the City, but even his harshest critics admire his tough negotiating tactics.

In spite of being associated with the ultimately disastrous RBS/ABN Amro deal, Mr Greenburgh went on to work on the taxpayer bail-out of RBS, and Lloyds Banking Group turned to him for advice on its £23.5bn capital raising and restructuring last year.

He advised Lloyds on the emergency takeover of HBOS, which saddled the healthy UK bank with losses. Working on the RBS takeover and the Lloyds merger – as well as their subsequent bail-outs – earned Merrill millions in fees.