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Keith Phair, head of MTNs at HSBC in 1996. Keith Phair left HSBC, where he ran the Euro-MTN desk, in 1998 just three months before the Russian crisis hit the market. But many MTN dealers remember him less for his immaculate timing and more for a television appearance he made. In March 1999, while he was out of the market, spending time with his family and watching his beloved Ipswich FC, he rang up the popular UK consumer affairs programme, Points of View. The programme has a slightly dubious reputation for encouraging viewers to voice their opinions about television programmes. And Phair looks vaguely horrified when it is pointed out that his complaint about a documentary being rescheduled was heard by many of his old friends in the market. Though he kindly does not pass judgement on the MTNers who spend their evenings watching the programme. He has subsequently made quite a few - far more respectable - appearances on television in his role as a banking consultant. Since joining The Bank Relationship Consultancy (BRC) as a senior consultant he has regularly featured on the CNBC business television channel talking about the capital markets. BRC was set up in 1989 and is based in slightly scruffy offices, which it shares with the Allied Bank of Pakistan, round the corner from the Tower of London. Phair, 46, joined in September 1999, a year after he left HSBC. His main role is advising borrowers, mostly medium-sized corporates, on how best to approach the capital markets. And he believes that the service BRC offers remains unique, with no real competitor. He says: "I think the consultancy market could be far bigger. A lot of issuers could do with external help. Issuers don't always get the best advice from MTN dealers and there is no external source of advice for these issuers to turn to." The biggest deal BRC has been involved in while Phair has been there is Marconi's debut in the international capital markets. The euro1.5 billion ($1.32 billion) Eurobond, launched in March 2000, was split into five- and 10-year tranches. But it was criticized at the time. One market professional says: "This transaction, and the consultancy's role in it, was not a success. Marconi knows it was a terrible deal." But Phair is quick to dismiss any criticism. He says: "The Marconi deal was a success especially considering that the telecom sector at the time was starting to fall apart and Marconi was a new name." And he sees his present job as similar to running an MTN desk. He believes that a thorough grasp of the market is necessary for both consultancy as well as trading. He says: "The good thing about MTNs when I was doing them was that it involved doing a bit of everything: sales, marketing, structuring, and understanding all the market. It was very interesting if you were in the right place. If you didn't have the right sales force or right clout within your organisation it was less interesting." He has fond memories of the early days of the Euro-MTN business. He says: "The MTN world has changed. In my day the desk was on its own or sometimes part of derivatives or secondary trading so it was easier to really build a business. Now the desk is usually tacked onto the end of syndicate." And he believes that the lack of autonomy MTN desks have now makes them a less innovative place. Finance was not Phair's first career. After a geography degree from Exeter University, he went on to complete an MSc in transport planning at Birmingham University. And with this qualification he ended up in a civil engineering firm working on traffic forecasts for the M25 motorway. He says he has no regrets about this initial career choice but does admit that when he joined the world of finance it did put him at a disadvantage. When he had been in banking for 10 years he looked around and realised that most of his contemporaries had as much as 20 years of experience under their belts. After a period working for a UK local authority he decided to pick up his third degree by doing an MBA at London Business School. This led him to his first banking job - at Bank of America. He started there in 1984 and worked for five years in syndicate and swaps. After this he moved to NatWest, where he got his first taste of MTNs, working alongside Chris Leaf. A market player who knew Phair at this time says: "He was someone with an alert and nimble mind. Just because something was done in a certain way didn't stop him trying a new approach." Soon he was hired to set up an MTN desk for Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB). He took Leaf with him and he has no hesitation in saying that his stint working at CSFB was the most exciting time of his career. He says: "I built the desk up and I did it myself. And 1993 to 1994 was a very exciting time for the market. There were a lot of highly leveraged trades going on and a lot of big-sized deals to be done. And also it was a big time of change for CSFB. It was a stimulating place to work, with real quality people, many of whom are still there." It was at CSFB that Phair did what he considers to be one of his most memorable trades: a Dm400 million seven-year deal for Treuhandstalt, the agency in charge of privatising East Germany's infrastructure. But though the trade was launched in February 1994 he is surprisingly coy about revealing what made the trade so special. The furthest he will he go is saying that it was derivatives-linked. Phair's unwillingness to disclose details of a trade issued for a borrower that was dissolved at the end of 1994 betrays his fondness for the cut and thrust of the market. And he admits that without a Bloomberg screen he would be at a loss. He says: "I would miss the excitement of the market if I wasn't watching it every day." But he adds: "I don't miss the actual trading floor, however." And he makes it clear that he would not be interested in heading a desk again, despite some posts being snatched up for reputably enormous salaries this summer. He says: "No, I just don't fancy it. When you've seen the market from all angles for 10 years, as I have done, it just doesn't appeal."

Kevin Regan, head of MTNs at Merrill Lynch in 1995. One of the market players who knew Kevin Regan in the 1980s says: "He always struck me as a particularly impressive character. I am sure he could sell ice to an Eskimo." Regan smiles on hearing this and insists an arctic sales deal is not on the cards. But he says: "I suppose I am a natural salesman. I get excited by new things. As a banker you can never say you've done it all, because the business is always changing." He still believes this after 22 years as a banker. And he has one of the best sales jobs around. Since 1997 he has been co-head of sales at UBS Warburg. It is a job he relishes. Uncomfortable talking about himself, he only relaxes when he is demonstrating UBS's F-18 sales system. Named after the fighter plane, it is a screen-based tool that links up all the possible information about the 13 different asset classes. He says: "I don't think our F-18 front-end system approach exists anywhere else. There is probably no other trading floor where you click an asset box and all of your screens reconfigure to bring up live information within that asset class, including axes, prices and direct communication with the trader, global sales and global clients." Before F-18, most of the sales team tended to concentrate on two to five of the asset classes. But Regan claims they can now be specialists in all the fields with the help of the system. With MTNs being one of the 13 asset classes, he still keeps a close eye on the market, saying he retains a soft spot for the product. He has long been heralded as the inventor of the Euro-MTN though many feel that Merrill Lynch, where he worked between 1984 and 1996, should share the credit. One of the crucial developments, in Regan's view, was the rapid development of the derivatives market, which allowed aggressive issuers to pursue opportunistic funding. But also important was the deregulation of European currencies, allowing, for example, a UK issuer to issue in French franc. He says: "It was an unusual time. Deregulation was allowing the market to exist rather than the market being pushed by either borrowers or investors. And then it just snowballed. It became easy to allow an issuer to do all its multi-currency needs off one programme." Merrill Lynch realised that if it was the first to work with the central banks to allow deregulation to happen it could dominate the market. And for a while Merrill Lynch did dominate the market, with Morgan Stanley its only real competitor. Regan thinks that this was the most exciting period of the market, because two top houses were competing aggressively and doing what the Euromarkets have traditionally been strong at - innovating. But he insists that the MTN world is far from dull now. He says: "I don't think that the market is less innovative now. It's just that there is less to innovate. But the credit angle is exciting. And there's a lot of work still to be done. Issuers need to be less absolute in their approach. There has to be a halfway house between launching a $1 billion benchmark once a year off your programme and sitting there posting sub-libor levels for opportunistic issuance. This is the most interesting opportunity for the market. And it is the least exploited." And his sales expertise means that he can now see the market from an investor's perspective. He says: "There has been a huge development of the corporate bond market in Europe. It's very exciting. Two years ago many of the large fund managers in Europe still had domestic investment parameters but the need to adopt a credit culture has been compelling." And for the Euro-MTN market, says Regan, this is a good thing.

Josef Nägel, the man who has been running the Neuer Markt for the last 2-1/2 years, left the Deutsche Börse this week after surprising the markets with an abrupt resignation. Nägel's last day was last Friday. Nägel, 40, was head of primary markets at the Börse, meaning that he ran the Neuer Markt and the Smax small-cap segment. He was instrumental in the meteoric rise of the Neuer Markt from its foundation in March 1997. Although the Nemax all-share performance index has fallen 45% since it was at 8,583 in March, the high growth exchange is gaining international acclaim as more companies from outside Germany list on it. As Nägel told EuroWeek in July:

The prospect of further consolidation in the cement sector arose last week as bankers speculated that there could be a bidding war between Lafarge SA and Holderbank Financière Glarus AG for Cimpor SA, and with Cemex's acquisition of Southdown Inc. Holderbank (unrated) bought a 2.6% stake in Cimpor (BBB+) from the Brazilian cement group Camargo Correa, after a joint bid with Semapa was rejected by the Portuguese government in August. Holderbank may now seek to form an alliance with Banco Comercial Portugues and Teixeira Duarte.

And then there were two. Frair Appelby-Walker has jumped ship, leaving the Barclays MTN desk looking rather sparse with only Apostolos and a chum to man the decks. Rumour has it Frair could be popping up on another MTN desk in Canary Wharf soon, but Leak doesn't want to Witter on about it. And MSDW's Klaus and friends claim to know nothing. Not being one to hang about, the ex-Barclays gal had a leaving party in Canary Wharf last night, with, among others, CSFB's CP-er Louise Mason who left Barclays a month ago. But the camera-shy girls were on the lookout for the Wharf's yellow canary, who often flies in to be photographed with leavers. CSFB's Simon Hill wasn't there to defend Louise and the others from the Wharf's big bird as he was clinking champagne flutes with JP Morgan's party girl Gayle down at Kensington Palace. This was the venue for Nordic Investment Bank's annual bash, courtesy of the Norwegian ambassador - as if MTNers aren't spoilt enough. Goldman Sachs has finally got its act together. The desk has been in limbo since Carolyn Coombs left before Christmas. But Alexis Renard is set to announce the new line-up today, so watch this space. And congratulations go to Luca Favero of Lehmans who tied the knot earlier this month. No doubt there'll be a few hearts breaking in the market. Will Leak ever find a MTN pin-up to replace him?

Now that Deutsche Bank won't be trading any yen for a few weeks, MTN-ers Alex Haidas and Henry Nevstad decided to fly off to Greece for a quick fix of sun and olive oil. Also flying in to the land of feta, was Lehman's Julia Ward on one of her regular Hellenic stop overs. She went to see her future hubby, the shipping lawyer who's posted out there. And Apostolos Saflekos, Barclays' one man MTN desk, was back home. Is some secret trading going on in Greece that Leak should know about? No doubt duty-free ouzo will be drowning the sorrows of desperate Deutsche traders missing their yen. IBJ has been out with the tomahawks, hunting a head for its MTN desk. They even tried to recruit ex-Sumitomo trader Kirsty Traill, who is far too happy out of the market to want to work for small fry. And Chase are still looking. Rumour has it they had Bruce Cairnduff in mind. They considered it for a while, then thought better of dragging him away from his race horses and his lap-dancing club. Some serious recruitment is still in order. Leak suggests that the Greek beaches might be a good place to start looking.

Dealers can breathe again. Andrew Moorfield, the bolshy funding man at Diageo, has decided that being voted most difficult issuer is the pinnacle of his treasury career. Today is his last day at the burger 'n' booze conglomerate. Those of you wondering what can possibly beat shouting down the phone to a bunch of MTN dealers may care to look at bfinance.fr, which is an internet business-news service. The top story on Tuesday was a profile of the bulldog himself which, though Leak's French is a little rusty, seemed to suggest Moorfield is nothing short of a god. Some mistake surely? Not when you realize that his next job is running . . . bfinance.co.uk. Good to see old fashioned self-aggrandizement is alive and well. And from worst to best, the top issuer SNS Bank's yacht race for its dealers wasn't quite the treat planned. For Merrill's Dean 'the dog' Fogg, MSDW's Klaus Svendsen and Gavin Eddy of Warburg it was more of an ordeal. The SNS boat got landed with the skipper from hell - a hardy Frieslander who took an instant dislike to Gavin. All the keeling and tacking was just a little too much for the landlubber trader who was even more horrified by the skipper's suggested cure for blisters - warm urine. Gives Leak table a whole new meaning . . .

Poor DLJ's Matt Carter has not been getting much sleep since the arrival of his new twins. And to add to the pressure he's been promoted to head of financial institutions. So, alongside his current responsibilities as head of syndicate and MTNs it looks as if he's practically running the bank. Maybe Tony Blair could give our Matt some advice on blagging some paternity leave? Still basking in its glory as best issuer ever, SNS is throwing a party for its loyal dealers in Holland this weekend. Traders taking up the freebie of a sailing expedition are Merrill's Dean the dog Fogg, Warburg's Gavin and MSDW's Klaus. But the party means they'll miss the last flight back to London and have to stay in Amsterdam. Could be quite expensive paying for those rooms by the hour lads... And Deutsche's Chris Jones had a narrow escape on his recent holiday in Fiji. When a major political coup looked likely to spoil his relaxation, the defiant MTNer fled to the nearby Solomon Islands - good choice Chris. It seems Chris was still in holiday mode on his return to work. Vicious rumours are that he lowered the tone in a grass skirt and pair of sandals. Although Leak doesn't believe Deutsche's dress-down rules could possibly stretch that far.

There is a certain market player who has far too much time on his hands. A friend of the Leak table, who insists on reporting undercover, happened to be passing a television when Points of View came on. For those uninitiated few, this programme allows members of the public to trumpet their opinions on any television programme. Our hack was surprised to hear a familiar voice complaining about the axing of "King Solomon's Mines". The concerned MTNer was none other than the one-time big cheese at HSBC, Keith Phair. Has it come to this? We all presumed MTNers lead hectic social lives. But if consumer affairs programmes are all they are interested in, then they should at least try to keep their habit a secret. Remember, the Leak table has eyes and ears everywhere. Nobody is safe. Big news of the week is that Klaus from Merrills has resigned. The young Scandi dealer has moved to another US bank but his new job should still keep him involved in MTNs. Mike Bransford, a Merrill structured finance man, has stepped into his quite formidable shoes.

Leak, along with many dealers, was rather alarmed to come into work last Friday to find some dried fish on its desk. And, no, it wasn't a protest from Lehmans, complaining about how far it has slipped down the league tables. It was a gift from our favourite Arctic issuer, FBA Icelandic Investment Bank. The bank is apparently sponsoring a polar expedition, although Leak is sure the fish is just a way of telling its dealers what it really thinks of them. And it seems there are only so many darkless nights an Icelander can take. Sigurdur Nordal, who sports the market's most remarkable haircut, has left FBA's treasury in the capable hands of Ingvar Ragnarsson, as he is moving to FBA's new private banking arm, based in sleepy Aylesbury in the UK. Issuers seem to be increasingly of the opinion that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Nordic Investment Bank's Ulrik Ross is defecting to Merrills in London where he will be working in Nordic origination. And Tarik Senhaji, who worked with John Borthwick at the IFC, has moved to Paris to join SG's MTN desk. And Lehman Brothers hasn't wasted any time in finding a replacement for Luca. Anton Douglas, from Bank of NZ, is set to join Julia and Brian on the desk in June.