Lloyds’ Antonio Horta-Osorio has a dig at economists at Institute of Chartered Accountants event
Antonio Horta-Osorio knows how to play an audience. At last night’s Institute of Chartered Accountants event at KPMG, the Lloyds boss charmed the accountants in the room… by throwing economists to the lions.
“Sadly I’m not an accountant myself,” he started “But I’ve never let that hold me back!
“To be fair though, it’s probably better than being an economist, a profession that has, or so I’m led to believe, been defined as ‘someone who didn’t have enough personality to become an accountant’.”
It was a line bound to have the accountants in the room giggling at their own humorous superiority. But it got The Capitalist thinking, what would the economists working for Horta-Osorio make of his gag?
We rang chief economist at Lloyds Trevor Williams, to get his thoughts.
Having regaled him with Horta-Osorio’s line about the definition of an economist we were greeted to a long and hearty laugh down the phone from Williams.
Looks like the pair will still be good pals this morning after all.