Burning ambition
THAT WAS when he met Siegmund War- burg. He, too, was making a new start, with what was then called the New Trading Company — 'a horrible name', Mr Grun- feld reflects, 'the opposite of what we were doing.' The idea was that their experience in banking and in industry might go togeth- er. Cautiously, they went through an 18- month engagement before joining forces. Mr Grunfeld was once asked (by another of his graduate trainees) whether the two of them planned the whole group to be what it is now. 'I thought: you must have been to Harvard. I told him there was absolutely no planning. We had totally empty desks. All we were concerned for was to earn our expenses.' What they had, though, was motivation. 'Both Siegmund 'and I', says Mr Grunfeld, 'had reached positions in Ger- many, in spite of our young ages.' Or, as he once put it: 'We both had the burning ambition and determination to get back into the position which we had, and show the world that we could do it.' That had to take time — `nothing happens suddenly' and war made it harder.
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