A couple of weeks ago, I posted from the World Series Squash Finals in South West London which had reached the semi-final stage.

Sadly, the final – between England’s Nick Matthew and Amr Shabana of Egypt – was never played, overnight storm damage rendering the venue unsafe. But two weeks later, Matthew and Shabana did meet – in the semi-final of the Tournament of Champions in New York.

And the tournament, staged in the Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Station, was sponsored, in true American style, by one of the largest investment banks in the world.

Rescue on Wall Street

In March 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis, the US investment bank J P Morgan Chase took over one of its rivals, Bear Stearns, at a startlingly low price. The share price of Bear Stearns, which had until recently been the fifth largest bank on Wall Street, had all but collapsed as a result of its over-exposure to  the mortgage-backed assets that were central to the subprime mortgage crisis.

Tournament of Champions in Vanderbilt Hall 2008

As part of the takeover deal, J P Morgan not only acquired Bear Stearns’ assets – including its glittering Madison Avenue skyscraper headquarters – but also its sponsorship of a squash tournament. The Tournament of Champions.

The founder of J P Morgan was the eponymous John Pierpoint Morgan (b1837 –d 1913), the  American financier, banker and art collector who dominated the world of corporate finance and industrial consolidation.

John Pierpoint Morgan

Morgan was the leading financier of the so-called Progressive Era, a period of social activism and reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. His dedication to efficiency and modernisation helped transform American business. Morgan also redefined conservatism in terms of financial prowess coupled with strong commitments to religion and high culture.

Money Never Sleeps

What Morgan would have made of his bank’s sponsorship of a squash tournament is a matter of speculation. But there’s no doubt that the 2011 event has been a money-spinner for its sponsors.

And who knows, perhaps the squash match scene with Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen)in the 1987 movie Wall Street
really was a metaphor for bleeding edge capitalism and the survival of the fittest….and bending the rules….

Well, if so, Nick Matthew – who meets Rami Ashour in the final – is going to have a really challenging time later this evening.

And possibly a very lucrative one.

But I suspect he knows that already.