Firms are each starting with different competitive advantages. Bank lenders will trade on their old lending relationships, M&A advisers on their strategic partnerships with issuers. And firms will seek to import each other's skills. The European firms, unused to a large domestic credit bond market, will copy American techniques, such as devising index products as a means to tie them to European bond investors who are being measured for the first time against new bond indices. The more ambitious European firms will renew their efforts in the dollar fixed-income markets in Europe and America. The Americans will bulk up their sales and origination teams in Europe, attempt to reach down to second-tier corporate issuers and will try to portray themselves more as entrenched domestic firms in Europe, with strong local managers, not mere collections of product specialists reporting to New York chiefs. Every firm will seek to get an edge by embracing the internet. Some will make dreadful mistakes. But for the winners, rich prizes beckon. Last year, the new single currency was the focal point for powerful forces that began to create a new debt capital market in Europe based on credit. |
