While the MTN market puts its feet up, content in the knowledge that Barclays and Chase have filled their positions, the CP market seems to have lost its head. We have all waited quite some time for Merrill Lynch to follow Morgan Stanley into the elite club of Euro-CP houses. And we will all have to wait a little longer, after it managed to hire someone for precisely one weekend. David Hayes, one of Citibank's leading CP traders, decided that he would grace Merrill's wannabe desk with his presence. But after the weekend he decided, on second thoughts, life at Citibank wasn't quite so bad after all and he returned to Victoria Plaza. However Susannah Savill, who was with Citibank's sales for 11 years, has gone to Barclays to join fellow ex-Citibanker Sally Vernon-Evans. And Andy Jones, who jumped ship from Barclays taking the entire desk with him to CSFB, is back at Barclays. A year running CSFB's CP desk was more than enough, we hear, and he has escaped into FRNs. He will be sitting next to one of the market's true stars: Rob Ford, who runs a rock band with the side-splittingly funny name, Light Alloy.
August 18, 2000