Credit Suisse is raising SFr6bn of fresh capital while cutting back the amount that it allocates to securities trading; Deutsche Bank is dividing its investment banking division in two and wants to trim it; Barclays’ intended chief executive, Jes Staley, is likely to curtail its investment bank outside the UK and the US. It does not take a genius to notice a common theme for European investment banks: retreat.

瑞信(Credit Suisse)正在筹集60亿瑞士法郎的新资本，同时削减证券交易业务的资金。德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)将把投行部门一分为二，并希望削减其规模；巴克莱(Barclays)拟任首席执行官杰斯斯特利(Jes Staley)可能削减英美以外的投行业务。你无需是个天才就能注意到欧洲投行的共同主题：撤退。

In April, I wrote that Europe needed at least one investment bank to compete head on with US giants such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. Shortly afterwards, Anshu Jain resigned as co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank and Europe’s banks headed in the opposite direction. UBS, which has raised its profitability since cutting bond trading in 2012, is the new model.

我在今年4月曾写道，欧洲至少需要有一家投行与高盛(Goldman Sachs)和摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)等美国巨头展开正面竞争。此后不久，安舒贾恩(Anshu Jain)辞去了德银联席首席执行官的职务，欧洲银行走向了相反的方向。瑞银(UBS)是新的模式。自2012年削减债券交易以来，瑞银的盈利能力有所提升。

One can see their point. It is very hard to break into Wall Street and even Goldman is having difficulties with bond trading, the dominant revenue producer of the pre-2008 boom. It is even harder for European banks such as Deutsche to make a decent return when such activities have been hit by higher capital and liquidity requirements. Shareholders are no longer willing to tolerate them dallying.

他们的想法不难理解。打入华尔街是非常困难的，甚至高盛也在债券交易业务上遇到困难——债券交易是2008年之前那段繁荣期的主要收入来源。在此类活动因资本金和流动性要求提高而遭受打击之时，德银等欧洲银行就更难获得体面回报了。股东已不愿意再忍受他们混日子。

Global investment banking is an expensive business that involves paying a lot of employees very highly to do many different things — from advising companies to underwriting equities and bonds, to trading currencies and precious metals — in many places at once. When enough of these activities are doing well they support the rest; when few are, it is painful.

跨国投资银行是一项昂贵的业务，包括要高价聘请许多员工在许多地方同时做许多不同的事情——从为公司提供咨询服务、到承销股票和债券，再到交易外汇和贵金属。当有足够多的活动表现不错的时候，它们就会支撑起剩余的活动，当没有几样活动表现不错的时候，情况就会令人痛苦。

But as Napoleon discovered on his way back from Moscow in 1812, retreating can be at least as hard and risky as advancing. In theory, it makes sense to ditch the parts of investment banks that do not achieve high returns and retain the parts that do. In practice, it is not as simple as that. If it were, European banks would not have expanded as much in the first place.

但是正如拿破仑1812年从莫斯科撤退时发现的那样，撤退至少可以和前进一样艰难和充满风险。理论上，砍掉没有实现高回报的投行部门、保留高回报部门是明智之举。但在实践中则并非那么简单。否则，欧洲银行当初根本就不会扩张那么多。

The first difficulty with retreating is that you need somewhere better to retreat to. UBS did the obvious three years ago because its fixed income division was not only facing regulatory pressure but was barely profitable in the first place. Meanwhile, it owned one of the world’s best private banks and wealth management divisions. What would you have done?

撤退的第一个困难在于，需要有一个更好的地方供你回撤。瑞银3年前做了个毫无悬念的选择，因为它的固定收益部门当时不仅面临监管压力，而且原本就几乎不盈利。与此同时，它的私人银行和财富管理部门却是世界一流的。换了你，你会怎么做？

Credit Suisse has a comparable ease of choice, although less obviously than UBS since its wealth management arm is smaller and it operates the former First Boston on Wall Street. Tidjane Thiam, its new chief executive, has now set it firmly on the UBS path. Similarly, Barclays has a decent investment bank in the US and UK, and a strong UK retail bank, although it faces the problem of the UK capital ringfence.

瑞信的选择也差不多容易，尽管该怎么选不如瑞银那么明显，这是因为它的财富管理部门较小，并且它还在华尔街上运营着曾经的第一波士顿(First Boston)。瑞信新任首席执行官提贾尼舠骄姆(Tidjane Thiam)现在让该行坚定地走上了瑞银的道路。同样，巴克莱在美国和英国有不错的投行部门，还有强劲的英国零售银行，尽管它面临英国资本“圈护”的问题。

John Cryan, the new chief executive of Deutsche Bank, has a tougher task. Not only is Deutsche’s domestic retail bank outmatched by German savings bank, but bond trading was its biggest strength. It wants to build up equities and wealth management but that will take time — meanwhile, it cannot retreat at the speed of UBS because it would be left with too little.

德银新任首席执行官约翰克赖恩(John Cryan)更难抉择。德银在德国国内的零售银行赶不上德国储蓄银行，不仅如此，德银的债券交易还是其最大的强项。它希望建立股票和财富管理业务，但那将需要时间，与此同时，它不可能以瑞银那样的速度撤退，因为那将会让它的业务所剩无几。

The second difficulty is that the various parts of a global investment bank fit together in a way that makes it tricky to drop the lossmaking ones while retaining the profitable ones. Equity trading and broking, for example, is a commoditised business with low margins but it enables profitable activities such as equity underwriting. There is collateral damage if you cut it.

第二个困难在于，一家跨国投行的各个部门其实是一个紧密的整体，这让它很难砍掉亏损部门、同时保留盈利部门。例如，股票交易和经纪是一个低利润率的商品化业务，但它支持了股票承销等盈利性活动。如果你砍掉该部门，就会带来连带损害。

Every bank yearns to have a big wealth management division; to advise companies on mergers and acquisitions; to underwrite initial public offerings and to operate in profitable markets without having to keep offices open in countries that are in recession. But it took banks such as Morgan Stanley decades of investment — and consistency — to achieve their lead.

每家银行都渴望有一个庞大的财富管理部门；为并购提供咨询；承销IPO；在有利可图的市场运营，而不用在陷入衰退的国家开门营业。但摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)等银行如今的领先地位是经过几十年的投资（以及坚持）才实现的。

Third, doing some things but not others is a tricky brand offering. Most of us know what a global investment bank offers — broad financial services for corporates and institutional investors. We also understand what a banking boutique does — a few services for companies, including advisory work. But what about a medium-sized European bank with global reach?

第三，做一些业务但不做另一些业务，这在品牌定位上难以把握。我们大多数人知道，一家跨国投资银行提供什么——为企业和机构投资者提供全面的金融服务。我们也明白一家精品银行做什么——为公司提供包括顾问工作在内的一些服务。但一家中等规模、在世界各地设有分支的欧洲银行是什么样的呢？