Will road shows return?

• Date: 13 December 2020
• Published date: 13 December 2020
• Author: Guy Ben Simon
• Publication title: Globes (Rishon LeZion, Israel)

"Historically, investment banking has been characterized by relationships that you built with customers, through the time that you invest in them and through personal influence in conversations when they are sitting opposite you. When you work in the office you waste a lot of time on PowerPoint and Excel.

"At JP Morgan we had already undergone digitalization in 2018 in order to adopt news ways and adapt existing procedure, such as mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and offerings, to the digital world, so that much of this journey has been shortened. Adopting these tools represents more of a cultural change than a technological revolution."

How do you see what is happening with cryptocurrencies as a bank and tech professional? Can it be called a revolution?

"We are at a stage in which you try to understand which tools you need to give to your customers, and which tools you need to give to your bankers. But I don't think we are talking about a radical transformation compared with currencies or financial instruments in previous generations. It represents more of a change for the CEOs and boards of directors of the word's major companies, and the banks supporting them."

How can you encourage the use of digital tools for substantial needs such as conducting very large transactions or remote capital raising?

"In recent months there has been a flood of mergers and acquisitions and large public offerings, and the vast majority of all this was performed solely on the Internet. Taking into account the chemistry that is usually required to conduct a transaction, in the network of relationships and the meetings with investors in a road show, it will be very interesting to see if the world will return to the days in which the CEO went absent from the company for two weeks and went out on the road to meet investors around the world.

"After all, they spend half of their time traveling, when they could be meeting more investors in more countries digitally. We are also talking about less expenditure on getting the business moving. I think that we will see much more of this in the future...