Global Custodian Spring 2019 | Page 6

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globalcustodian.com
Back to where it all started
T
hree decades ago, from a dingy loft in Tribeca in New York City, the first issue of
Global Custodian emerged.
On the face of it, it seemed a tenuous idea, but sometimes perseverance wins the day,
and perseverance was our strong suit.
In 1989, the first substantial wave of cross-border investing was evidencing itself –
capital pools across the world were actively seeking diversification outside their own
borders. And, as it turned out, it required more than investment managers to make that
happen. It required substantial infrastructure – exchanges and depositories that could
deal with cross-border settlement, banks in every country to act as agents, forex desks,
new international reporting and corporate actions standards, securities lending capa-
bilities, and, last but not least, the global banks to coordinate the whole process. Why
not, our reasoning went, dedicate a magazine to that?
Luck was on our side. The magazine was profitable from the get-go, and we quickly
learned the value of surveys – if it moved, we surveyed it. And the trend behind the
launch - the surge of cross-border investing - proved secular and gave us the following
wind we needed. We also took real pride in the sort of editorial that was increasingly
rare even then – long pieces that required extensive reporting and edit space. The best
of these were written by long-time editor Dominic Hobson, and he and others gave the
magazine an intellectual heft that none of our competitors even aspired to.
My own career has taken me from publishing to finance, but the pure fun of launch-
ing and making Global Custodian succeed is vivid in my mind. It was pure pleasure
from start to finish. The executives in that industry – from a bank CEO in Boston to
an agent bank branch manager in Cairo, and the thousands in between that ushered in
the age of cross-border investing – were welcoming and transparent. It was then, and
remains, a privilege to have told their story.
EDITORIAL
Managing Editor
JONATHAN WATKINS
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]
Deputy Editor
JOE PARSONS
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]
Special Projects Editor
RICHARD SCHWARTZ
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]
Subscriptions Manager
KIKI BUSTOS
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]
Head of Operations
KAREN DELAHOY
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]
Contibutors
CHARLES GUBERT, CHARLIE RUFFEL
DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Art Director
OLIVIA ROSZKOWSKA
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]
ADVERTISING
Advertising Director
DALJIT SOKHI
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]
Senior Account Manager
MATT ALDRED
[phone]
[e-mail]
ADDRESS
20 Little Britain
London, UK
EC1A 7DH
Tel: [phone]
Printed by: Warners Midlands PLC
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Global Custodian magazine publishes five issues per year.
GlobalCustodian.com publishes daily.
Annual subscription:

$565 - magazine only;

$715 - web only;

$890 – package.
For more information contact
[e-mail].
Global Custodian is owned and produced by Tungsten Publishing Ltd.
©Tungsten Publishing 2019
No part of this publication may be reproduced, in whole or in part,
without written permission from the publisher.
Charlie Ruffel
Founder
Global Custodian
6
Global Custodian
Spring 2019