Borrowers awards 2003: Bookrunners contemplate a vintage year

Full list of winners

JUST OVER A month ago when Euromoney was interviewing US debt capital markets heads about prospects for the primary markets in May, pretty well everyone was gloomily predicting a quiet month. After a strong start to the year, US issuance in March and April had been disappointing. A lot of banks were predicting that the US primary business would be be down year on year, reasoning that with no immediate prospect of economic growth, a spurt of new funding was unlikely. Predictions for 2003 as a whole were that issuance would be as much as 20% down on 2002. "Five per cent to 10% down on the year could be optimistic at this point," was one managing director's bleak assessment.

Be wary of following these bankers' forecasts.

A month on and the situation couldn't be more different. In May there was a rush of new deals...