How blue-blood Caz is beating the crisis

Naguib Kheraj, chief executive of JPMorgan Cazenove, declared he will be happy if the blue-blooded broking firm comes out of 2009 as well as it did in 2008.

"Despite the fact that last year was a terrible year for the industry we had a good year," he said.

The firm reported a 10% fall in revenues and a 15% fall in profits which stands up remarkably well against what was happening elsewhere in the City.

Kheraj, the former finance director of Barclays who took over as chief executive of JPMorgan Cazenove last October, said: "To be down by only 15% in these markets is not bad.

"We have been gaining market share in almost everything we do."

However the firm's employees and shareholders — many of whom are the same people — will bear the pain of the downturn.

Bonuses for Cazenove's 670 staff are down by 18% from a total of £103 million to £85 million while the dividend for the year has been slashed from 26p to 21p.

The firm has cut its costs in the last year, closing offices in Asia and Paris and axing around 75 staff.

Nevertheless, Kheraj believes the current climate is a good one for a firm with the history and contacts of Cazenove.

He said: "In any business it's always swings and roundabouts. So while there's much less merger and acquisition activity around there is a lot of demand for new equity and debt issuance."

The firm has been involved in many of the biggest recent rights issues, but according to Kheraj: "We were not involved in the rescue rights issues at Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS."

He believes there is a growing problem with conflicts of interest, despite the fact his team has recently raised money for Standard Chartered, HSBC, and Barclays.

"More and more people are going with people they trust," he said.