LYG Lloyds Banking Group Plc

By Simon Clark 

A decade after the financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal has checked in on dozens of the bankers, government officials, chief executives, hedge-fund managers and others who left a mark on that period to find out what they are doing now. Today, we spotlight former Morgan Stanley executive Zoe Cruz and former Merrill Lynch banker Matthew Greenburgh.

The U.K. banker who ditched finance to pursue photography now likens the quest for great wealth to cult-like behavior.

"For many in the West, of course, the Enlightenment has reduced the role of God and replaced it with money," said Matthew Greenburgh, who advised financial institutions on mergers and acquisitions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch before leaving eight years ago.

Mr. Greenburgh advised Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC on its 2007 acquisition of parts of ABN Amro Holding NV and Lloyds Banking Group PLC when it purchased HBOS PLC the following year. The high-price takeovers left the banks short of cash when the financial crisis erupted. Both relied on multibillion-pound bailouts from the British taxpayer to survive.

He understands why the public was outraged by people like him.

"Given the terrible and very regrettable consequences resulting from many mergers and acquisitions before the credit crunch, I totally understand why some people were angry about the role of some advisers, including myself," he said in an interview.

Now, at 57, he is the oldest student pursuing a master's degree in photography at London's trendy Central Saint Martins art school. He has also dedicated more time to nature, having served as a director of a charity that promotes planting trees and as chairman of a small rural English council.

Mr. Greenburgh has photographed fallen leaves to contemplate what he calls "beauty and death and their representation." For his art school degree show, he has created an installation that evokes a temple to money. It's on display at the school in London this weekend.

He projected photographs of the details of coins and bank notes -- particularly the eyes from bank notes -- onto a gallery wall. Two rotating acrylic columns covered with photographs of stacked-up coins stand as the pillars of the brightly colored temple.

Mr. Greenburgh said the art installation "invites the viewer to consider connections between money as a cult, as an act of faith, as a mode of control and an agent of power, as elusive for many but scalable by some."

Write to Simon Clark at simon.clark@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 25, 2018 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)

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