Leak was interested to read IFR's decisions as to who they thought were top MTN and CP dealers and issuers. Leak has no doubt that Salomon and Deutsche were deserving winners respectively, it's just that we couldn't decipher the incomprehensible article that accompanied the MTN awards, which included the baffling sentence: "With a large proportion of business executed under MTN facilities, it is not uncommon for some of this to be included in traditional MTNs." The cartoon of Salomon's Peter Jackson was very cute, however. And rumours are circulating as to how much Merrill Lynch bribed IFR to award Region of Sicily, which has issued precisely two public MTNs, the MTN Programme of the Year. And on the subject of awards and bribes, Leak would like to announce that as MTNWeek is due to present its awards in March, it is open to all sweeteners. And we are hoping that LVMH, one of 2000's glitziest signings, will outdo Diageo, one of 1999's, in the achohol-sent-around-to-MTNWeek's-offices-as-bribes stakes. A couple cases of Moet should suffice. And to get everyone in the mood for awards we thought we'd announce two warm-up ones. The first one is Biggest Self-Publicist of 2000 - Andrew Moorfield. Yes, the bulldog may no longer be running Diageo's treasury, but that has not stopped him spouting forth on MTNs. The website that he runs, bfinance.co.uk, is meant to publish news of relevance to corporate treasuers. But after getting its knuckles rapped by CFO Europe, one of the Economist's magazines, for stealing its stories it has obviously found itself short of news. So Moorfield has turned journalist and published a series of articles that he himself has written: "How to transact an MTN - Communication is the key." And "How to transact a CP programme - Getting a short-term fix." Both series of articles are very interesting and include the revealing comment from the man himself: "Issuers who fail to respond within a reasonable time frame (or respond at all) will quickly develop a negative reputation with investors. Despite the fast moving nature of capital markets, a spoiled reputation can take years (or a change of treasurer) to restore." Hmmmm. And the website also includes in its diary section a list of conferences and dinners that the ubiquitous ex-treasurer is speaking at. The next award goes to Mike Timms, who wins Man Most Obsessed with MTNs. The intrepid hack not only spends his holidays writing MTN articles for Euromoney but also turned down a glamorous showbiz party hosted by the lovely Joanna Lumley to make an appearance at the MTN dealers drinks just before Christmas. That's dedication. Apart from Salomon (preening over its award), Merrill and Morgan Stanley (sulking over their lack of awards) anyone who was anyone was at the drinks at Chez Gerard in Bishopsgate. ABN Amro's Rachel King and Natalie Bowbrick made a rare public appearance. UBS's Gavin Eddy and BNP's Daniel Cogoi were outboring each other about their respective websites. Julia Abbott (nee Ward) was showing off her honeymoon-suntan and on the lookout for a senior trader to join her at Commerzbank. And the Barclays boys, including newly-joined Olly Johnson, were ensuring Chez Gerard could report healthy end of year sales figures. And this week the boys have been joined by a new girl on the desk. She comes from a German bank. Nabil A-booze-a-lot is keeping her identity a secret until next week. Watch this space. . . Another personnel update: Jonathan Minor, who left Westpac's treasury in December, has ended up at Daiwa Bank. And sad, but true, lovely Luca Favero has left MTNs. The star trader last year was poached from Lehman by DLJ's Matt Carter to set up its MTN business, and then subsequently ended up at the post-merger CSFB. Here he worked under Simon Hill and alongside Julie Edinburgh, who has just started her maternity leave. But Luca has left these two stalwarts this week to concentrate on credit derivatives within CSFB. So Simon Hill will return from holiday to find that he is the only person on the CSFB MTN desk.
January 05, 2001
