just now
London’s financial market is no stranger to drama. In June 2011, the Eurozone debt crisis was heading toward its denouement.
A group of reporters gathered in St John’s Wood, rounded up by an established figure in the City: Tony Cross, who this July celebrates the 25th anniversary of the start of a highly influential career.
He was halfway to the milestone that summer’s night. Greece was on the cusp of dropping out of the shared currency area and one of the bloc’s major economies – Italy – was also moving toward the brink.
With Cross sat staffers from Reuters, The Financial Times and The Evening Standard among others. I was with them, fresh from a fraught FT newsroom. He brought us to Lord’s cricket ground, where Middlesex were taking on Kent, but the action on the pitch was being upstaged by events in the capital markets.
Cross took a call. He explained some of the finer points of the market mechanics at work, in an accessible and understandable manner, with characteristic ease and efficiency. Held with a journalist on ITV’s flagship News at Ten, the conversation directly informed how some of the most influential coverage of the story was shaped.
His reputation as an essential contact and go-to communications professional came from established, daily relationships maintained with a range of media contacts. It was sealed three years earlier when Lehman Brothers collapsed. To journalists and readers alike, the acronyms of the Great Financial Crisis were as puzzling and unreadable as hieroglyphics.
For much of Fleet Steet, Cross became vital to understanding the events of 2008. His calm efficiency and deep understanding stood out. He established himself as the modern-day market reporter’s equivalent of the Rosetta Stone, the British Museum’s priceless key to translating the otherwise-impenetrable argot of ancient Egypt.
Michael Wilson, the seasoned business editor of Sky News, led the television network’s coverage from inside a trading room where Cross handled the media.
“I was dealing with somebody who really knew what was going on. There we were, anchoring programmes from the dealing floor, with the only story in town.
“It’s extremely difficult in financial PR, because you have to understand a load of what is going on, much more than you do as a journalist. I think that’s what makes Tony rather good.”
John Blowers, MD, Stockommendation
For financial professionals, this reputation provides access to opinion formers. John Blowers, managing director of Stockomendation and a City grandee in his own right, describes Cross’s reach as “unrivalled”: “He knows all the key people, and it’s hard because there is a very fast turnover. Financial services companies have had to adapt enormously to the internet and the way that they have been regulated, which has changed how much business they can do and in what territories. And the media has changed beyond all recognition.”
Blowers adds: “I’ve worked with Tony on three different businesses. His market knowledge has had to be broad. We could have picked a specialist PR business for each of those. But with Tony, you get him and not some junior working on an account. That’s his real value.”
Cross himself recalls that he was in demand at times of crisis because many of the big banks “pulled down the shutters” and would not engage with the media.
“If people aren’t talking enough, it means there is a lack of understanding about why prices are moving. Why would anyone back the market then? That comes back to the news aspect, when we are trying to drive liquidity,” Cross explains.
“It is typically better for a company to say something rather than nothing,”
But the blizzard of investment chatter on social media is no replacement for the genuine insight provided by timely and high-quality market commentary. Navigating the markets has become more treacherous.
Cross’s ability to properly feed the news narrative covering a broad range of asset classes, market structures and liquidity sources is founded in sound academic credentials: a BA in finance from the University of Strathclyde and an MSc in electronic publishing from City University of London. His analysis of voluntary trading suspensions in shares and media coverage on the London Stock Exchange was published by Australia National University in 1995.
It is a blend of expertise and experience with broad reach.
Richard Elston, Head of Middle East,
CMC Markets Connect
Richard Elston, Head of Middle East at CMC Markets Connect, values the way Cross’s perspective has “generated content that we wouldn’t have thought of otherwise” which has “kept us rolling, kept us fresh and allowed us to have something to say to our client base, that perhaps our own marketing teams weren’t capable of achieving all on their own.”
And Elston points out: “He’s looking at fresh markets … and liquidity patterns and saying to the world ‘hey, have you thought about trading these stocks?’.
“He bridges that gap between being able to put pen to paper and having that fundamental understanding of the market. There aren’t many Tonys to the pound.”
Cross’s contribution runs further than fielding a call during a fraught moment at a cricket match. It has scored highly with a range of audiences and clients making a real difference to the popular accessibility of the market.
As he says himself: “The idea is that anybody can read and understand the analysis provided. If you are in the lift with the chairman, you can have an intelligent conversation about what is happening.
“I’m helping my clients educate people as to how the world really works.”
Author
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Michael Hunter: Former FT markets reporter, and freelance journalist
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