Asia’s bankers slowly head back to work

One JPMorgan banker in Hong Kong said he joined five conference calls the other day: not one was about a deal, they were all about internal protocol and coping in the coronavirus era.

HONG KONG: Simon Kavanagh never thought he’d be so happy to go to work. The investment banker rode the elevator to the 20th floor of his office on Queen’s Road Central in Hong Kong recently after spending a couple of weeks cooped up in his apartment as the coronavirus raged across Asia.

Working from home is nice for a few days, “but for week-long periods when you live in very small Hong Kong apartments it quickly loses its novelty, ” said Kavanagh, a managing director at BDA Partners. “Returning to the office indicated a return to normalcy.”