MTN Leak

It was another momentous week in the MTN market, with issuers across Europe startled by activity. Well, startled by activity is perhaps an exaggeration. Several were certainly startled from sleeping at their desks when Leak tried to call. It was just that kind of week.

There are a lot of places in the world famous for surf: Bondi Beach, Jeffrey’s Bay, Bells Beach, Waimea Bay and ... Stavanger, Norway.

Genealogy is not a subject that often gets an airing in Leak Table but this week we were struck by the family tree that emerges when we trace back the MTN kinship of current traders.

The shadowy network maintained by current and former Commerzbank MTN deskers has, over many years, slowly extended its tentacles to all corners of the market.

The meet-and-greet, drink-and-feel-dizzy odyssey continued this week, as the newest member of team Leak continued his mission of going out to meet the market. Tuesday brought lunch and dinner with different commercial paper dealers and the new boy — hoping to enjoy pricey meals with pricier wine — was treated to ... the pub. Twice in one day.

The only thing that stays the same is that everything keeps changing: a lesson as old as financial markets (to which holders of today’s version of tulip bulbs — asset backed commercial paper — would attest).

It’s been another tough week in MTNs and we were rather hoping to have some entertaining gossip to give our readers’ spirits a boost. But unfortunately we’ve been too busy trying to make sense of the conversations we’ve been having. They’ve gone a little bit like this:

Times are a-changing at Leak HQ. As one half of the team heads off to Hong Kong, a new man joins the fray. And there’s no doubt that he has some fun times ahead.

To: All investors in ‘Leak Table’

"Wouldn’t it be great if the privately-placed structured note market really was $160bn deep already this year," was the smart response of one eagle-eyed dealer to our error last week in getting our league tables mixed up. Sorry. We were just trying to keep people cheerful, which, given some of the comments we heard this week, might be no bad thing.

News reached Leak of a debate this week between MTN issuers, dealers and investors, so we did our best to obtain a transcript. Unfortunately, the tape we received appeared to have got mixed up with a Discovery Channel wildlife documentary, so instead we’ve tried to reproduce some of what the conversation might have included.

"After carrying out comprehensive stress tests, Moody’s has concluded that Glitnir’s liquidity profile is sound," the rating agency said in another of its fluffy opinion pieces — sorry: important rating announcements — yesterday.