Barclays, Goldman, Deutsche, Lazard: banks that always attend Bilderberg

If you’re a conspiracy theorist or a person with pretensions to global importance, the annual Bilderberg meeting will be etched upon your mind in indelible ink. If you’re neither of these, you may be interested to know that Bilderberg is holding its ‘secretive’ annual meeting this week.

Incongruously, this year’s Bilderberg meeting is happening in Watford, an unglamorous outer London suburb. Interestingly, it’s being held in the same hotel as Google’s recent invitation-only ‘Zeitgeist’ event.

Although it’s portrayed in some circles as a covert and slightly sinister gathering to decide world affairs, Bilderberg’s agenda is made public on its website. Among other things, attendees this year will be discussing European politics, medical research, cyber warfare and big data.

Although banking and financial services regulation aren’t on the agenda, it seems that plenty of bankers and banks attend Bilderberg meetings on a regular basis. We’ve combed through attendee lists for the past five years and noted that some names and organisations appear repetitively. They are:
1. Josef Ackermann, former chief executive of Deutsche Bank