It's the end of an era at Merrill Lynch. John McNiven, the firm's colourful co-head of global debt markets in London and arguably the most successful debt market professional of the 1990s, is heading east to Hong Kong, to become co-head of Asian investment banking.
McNiven's London replacement will be Anders Bergendahl, most recently head of relationship management and business origination in the investment banking group.
It's a tough act to follow. McNiven, an ebullient Australian who drives a Rolls-Royce sporting the number plate MC NIV, joined the firm in 1988 from JP Morgan, along with six others, at a time when Merrill languished in 21st place in the Euromarket league table. But it topped the table in 1994 and has been there ever since.
McNiven established a reputation as a straight-talking, innovative debt market practitioner.
According to one colleague: "Tales about John are far too many to recount." One story concerns the run-up to McNiven's wedding a few years ago. The firm had for some time been chasing a big deal in the Ecu market, where it had won few mandates. So one syndicate staffer got hold of the treasurer of a major Euromarket borrower just two days before the wedding and persuaded him to call McNiven. This treasurer duly informed McNiven that, while he wanted to do the deal with Merrill, he was having trouble convincing his senior management that, given Merrill's record in Ecu, they would be able to carry it off successfully. McNiven's presence the next day at his offices (some 3,000 miles away) would ensure that Merrill collected its prized mandate.
McNiven, putting his firm before his fiancée, was all set to make the flight when the jokers revealed the plot (but not before the future Mrs McNiven had phoned the treasurer to tell him that John was on the plane and he had ruined the most important day of her life).
Anders Bergendahl is a very different character. He joined the firm in 1977 and has spent his career in the investment banking division.
He is perhaps best known for his part in building up Merrill's Scandinavian debt business in the difficult days of the mid-1980s, when the Nordic region became probably the firm's most important client franchise area.
Clive Horwood
Not Liars' poker
The young girl who started as a telex operator at Salomon Brothers in London and rose to become a director and head of fixed-income research, Valerie Thompson, has always been a figure in Euromarket folklore. Now she has written a book.
The bad news for the vivacious Thompson's many admirers is that it isn't an auto-biography with dark "kiss 'n' tell" stories, or the key to why Salomon managing directors sent over from New York seem to have such a short shelf life in London.
Mastering the Euromarkets is serious - a handbook for practitioners in the international bond markets.
The book is a fascinating read. Its strength lies in its clarity and the straightforward approach it takes to questions which young practitioners are too timid to ask. The bond maths is particularly well presented, perhaps a reflection of the difficulties Thompson herself found with complex formulae.
A former Salomon managing director said: "Deryck Maughan and Warren Buffett will probably take 1,500 copies for Salomon traders, just for the comments on avoiding disasters."
Ian Kerr
I mandate you in the name of the law...
Some German banks made Herculean efforts to get on the Deutsche Telekom issuing syndicate, but Schröder Münchmeyer Hengst (SMH) was included without making a single trip to Bonn, or lunching with a single finance ministry official.
"We made no attempt at all to get this business," says an amused Klaus Bert, one of the managing partners at the investment house and private bank owned by the Lloyds Bank Group, "It just fell into our lap." As
Euromoney reported last month, SMH is the only German house with an underwriting capability that did not seek a role in the syndicate.
The bank prefers to be able to give independent investment advice to its clients than to earn modest fees. "We are sticking to our policy of non-participation in underwriting syndicates," says Eberhard Weiershäuser, the managing partner who heads SMH's treasury business.
Thus Weiershäuser and his partners were caught unawares when Deutsche Telekom publicly announced SMH's appointment as a co-manager. Later, a letter arrived. "We hope you will appreciate that because of the huge public interest, we have informed the media of our
decision without discussing the structure of the syndicate with you beforehand," wrote Telekom finance director Joachim Kröske.
Eberhard Rolle, a senior official at the finance ministry in Bonn, argues that SMH had not ruled itself out of being in the consortium, however. "I couldn't exclude any banks without laying myself open to attack. But I'm not obliging anyone to accept our invitation."
Weierhaüser, a public advocate of privatization, knows life isn't that simple. "This privatization is a challenge to the entire nation, that's the problem," he says.
So will SMH be accepting Telekom's offer? At the time of going to press Weierhäuser was saying: "That depends on the terms of the deal and how much freedom we have to publish independent research."
Laura Covill
Japan's bulletproof bankers wear blazers
Why do some Japanese bankers appear so stiff in public? Maybe it's their vests.
Japanese makers of bulletproof vests, which used to be almost exclusively worn by cash-delivery guards, report a surge in sales to executives of banks and other financial services. Especially popular, according to Shoichiro Takahashi of Toa Security, is a new bullet-and-knife-proof "blazer" available in six different materials, including Italian cashmere, which, worn with its removable armoured panels, weighs only two kilos. Cost? A mere ¥200,000 ($1,923). The blazer is "unique".
The traditional armoured undershirt causes sweating, and the bulletproof leather jacket, which Toa Security also sells, makes the wearer look like a member of the Russian mafia. Since the Japanese naturally expect bankers to seize every opportunity to play golf, the blazer is a perfect shield for those haunted by the fear of assassination on the golf course.
Understandably, Takahashi declines to reveal the names of his banking customers. "If it is known they are wearing body armour, assailants will shoot them in the head," he explains.
The spread of illegal handguns in Japan, and a spate of sensational violent crimes, has led to widespread unease. Dai-Tokyo Fire & Marine Insurance last year surveyed its staff on their sense of security and found that 51% lived in fear of being knifed or shot. (No such case has yet occurred, a Dai-Tokyo spokesman says.)
Bankers feel the risk more acutely because so many of their bad loans involve the yakuza, Japan's gangsters. Between 1992 and 1995 police investigated 40 reported attacks by yakuza on financial institutions or companies involved in bad loans.
Peter McGill
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