Comment from the FT’s live financial markets blog.
‘No bank…would survive the promised return of Christ.’ So says Ken Costa, the vice-chairman of investment banking at UBS, reports the FT’s people column…
In the book, he describes a moment of epiphany, struck by the looming facades of the Bank of England and the Swiss Bank Corporation…
“As an investment banker in the City of London, I have read the Financial Times and the Bible almost every day for the last 30 years.”
But which has generated the greater return?
FT Alphaville.
‘Investment bankers are not often thought to harbour religious beliefs, other than a desire to bow down before the altar of mammon. Ken Costa has set out to challenge that view by publishing a book called God at Work: Living every day with purpose.
In the slim volume, the vice-chairman of investment banking at UBS sets out deeply personal views on reconciling his faith with the City, where he has spent his entire working life.
Mr Costa, who was born and brought up in South Africa, writes that the apartheid regime initially turned him away from Christianity, but that his belief was revived while studying at Cambridge University in the 1970s. He joined SG Warburg in 1976 and embarked on a stellar career that saw him rise to the upper ranks of the investment bank.
But he retained a sense of perspective. In one passage, he describes being impressed by the looming facades of the Bank of England and Swiss Bank Corporation. “But then, in a flash, I saw the truth,” he writes. “No bank - Swiss Bank or the Bank of England - would survive the promised return of Christ. Strong as they appeared, their apparent security would be broken in an instant.”‘
In the People Column of the FT.
A talk by Ken Costa will be broadcast on the ‘Holy Trinity Tonight’ show at 11pm on the 18th August and 7pm on the 19th August.
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