Reuters Summit: Wall St`s image needs years to rebound

RELATED NEWS US financial trade tax faces uphill battle Meet the Ohio lawyer who is taking on Wall Street

Wall Street's image, battered by the financial crisis, may take years to recover as its executives themselves are the first to acknowledge.

Executives from a range of financial companies - both on and off Wall Street - told the Reuters Global Finance Summit in New York that the recent economic crisis has shaken outsiders' faith in the industry.

It has also damaged high-profile executives' reputations and spoiled what little goodwill others had for the industry, they said.

Repairing the damage will take time, executives said, and may be impossible in some cases.

"We had a saying that it takes years to build a reputation and you can lose it overnight," said Joe Perella, CEO of Perella Weinberg Partners and a long-time Street veteran. "And it's hard to repair it overnight after what's happened."

FAILURES

Critics - from Main Street to the halls of Congress - said the industry is out of touch and ignored significant risks in the pursuit of profit, placing the global economy at risk.

The broader financial sector's failures, critics said, are widespread.

Mortgage companies implemented too-loose lending standards, bolstered by Wall Street's demand for mortgage-backed securities to bundle and sell across the globe.

Even ratings agencies often failed to identify the risks being created by a handful of industry professionals.

The crisis created the largest bank failure in US history and six of the ten largest bank failures since 1934, as well as the largest recession since the Great Depression.

Continued on the next page...