Excitement is above average at Black Knight. Today The Globe Bank is coming to see us - the first visit since they found out we dumped their last dollar deal on the brokers.
JJ Ingersoll, head of global focus, has told me to get hold of as many boxes of Stabilo Boss highlighter pens as I can, and a couple of paper knives. He says it will be a presentation the likes of which we've never seen before. Well, not since Jessica Einekleinenachtmusik was here in 1989 when she took the wrong turn and thought she was at Goldman.
I hear a loud booming laugh, like the Nazis saying hello to Poland with unfriendly planes, and I know why: the head of funding for GlobeBank has arrived with his legion of coffee drinking basis-point squeezers, called co-head of dollars and things like that. Before I can even put the pink or lime-green fluorescent pens on the table, Truger Rottweiler is in our James Bond-style meeting room complete with eight television screens and a monorail train that was supposed to go to Heathrow terminals one and four before we ran out of money in February 1993.
Rottweiler says guten Tag and asks me if I know what a repo facility is, and if so why haven't I bothered to use the one we set up for their last Deutschmark deal? I laugh and say: "Never let it be said again that the Swiss don't have a sense of humour." JJ Ingersoll scowls slightly and adjusts his baseball cap. "How are things Truger?"
"Not sehr gut," replies Rottweiler, "our new boss, Mr Volfensons, came to see me yesterday, and told me he wanted to write off several parts of Africa's debt and to hell with the credit rating. He looks like he actually believes in development. Very worrying."
"Heh," says JJ in a delighted, globally focused way, knowing GlobeBank are so desperate they might even mandate us. "Truger, we've got the answer to your problem. Forget Moody's, forget the fact your premium is getting about as thin as the ozone layer, forget Earth in fact. We've been swinging our dicks around in here and we've come up with the ballsiest trade you're ever gonna see."
The pitch is working I can tell because three of Truger's basis-point squeezing yes-people are bouncing up and down, and Truger says "How?" Just then the room goes slightly dark because the electronic blinds whirr down, and a couple of security guards come in with long hoovers to sweep for bugs.
"Let me introduce our newest recruit," says JJ, "This is Callum Kelly, who we recently headhunted from Nasa. He's been working on an altogether new form of security."
"Thanks, JJ" says Callum, standing up and removing a pair of goggles. "While I was with the space agency we started to realize that there was a whole area of untapped demand out there. A probe we sent up told us that there are fixed income investors in most of the planets in our solar system. But up until now they've tended to be interested only in equities, and it's clear this is changing.
"The competition you're facing in the global bond market is fierce, so why not do a universal bond instead."
JJ comes in: "I think you realize, Truger, this firm's always had global placement in Asia and Europe, which ties up nicely with our untouchable US presence, but we feel we also have the capability to secure universal placement - at least in this solar system and the Milky Way."
One of Truger's people asks what we know so far. "Well, Hubble pictures prove conclusively that there is something resembling a Bahnhofstrasse on Mars, and we suspect the Belgian dentists of the universe are on Uranus..."
I pipe up: "Truger, there's a whole set of retail demand on Uranus, with good follow-through. They're pretty spread insensitive on Uranus too." Somebody near the back has to wipe the corners of her mouth, and a young Italian slaps himself. This is going so well.
"But there are a couple of drawbacks," says Callum, readjusting his standard issue anti-gravity boots so he can walk up one of the walls. "We suspect that Saturn has a version of the SEC and that is why the ring exists. Its basically a form of securities law. So if we want penetration we might need a 144A. The other problem is that the alien lifeforms so far contacted have told our salesforce they'll only buy bearer bonds. So distribution is slightly tricky. We've been onto head office in New York to see if we can buy a space rocket - an old Saturn 5 would most probably do - and we're trying to hire astronauts too."
Rottweiler looks interested but asks about the liquidity. I ensure him that we'll trade the bond for its lifetime, for sure, and even post a price on Bloomberg. But just think I say, you're a rare name in the universe, and the bid outside Earth is bound to be aggressive. We could launch it in Jupiter time and price it in European time. Blowout.
Everyone looks at Rottweiler to see if he''ll buy it - perhaps the greatest pitch we've ever made.
Back to Earth and a fascinating day at Ernst Volkard's squirrel farm near Woking. These animals, Ernst tells me, bear the closest resemblance to the investment banker of any known species. They are fiercely independent, have voracious appetites, and an extraordinary ability to find loopholes where you'd think they didn't exist. Volkard's Squirrel Range is a university for many top managers in the capital markets who want to handle their charges better.
After the short train journey to Woking, and a lunch washed down with claret, I accompany Volkard onto the range. This consists of netted compounds in a plantation of hazels and young beech, each containing about a dozen squirrels. In the middle of the compound is a wooden platform where the client goes through his tasks. It's an exhilarating sight in the oblique winter sunshine. Here are men and women at the peak of their profession, concentrating on persuading these creatures through some simple manoeuvres. Here is Marcel Ospel, lashing with a horsewhip at some recalcitrant beasts. Some of his squirrels have burrowed their way through to another compound where Edson Mitchell has three of them in his lasso. Hitoshi Tonomura is urging his charges through some difficult indexed hoops with the help of a No 5 iron, while Alec de Lezardière exhorts his scattered team in several languages. Do I spy Patrick Stevenson back in the beginner's compound? Next to him Martin Owen reasons with a pair that are clinging to his trousers. Sir David Scholey, a former client - here out of pure nostalgia - is apparently happy to allow the animals to walk all over him. But Volkard leaps into action as he sees Hansgeorg Hofmann pulling out a snub-nosed Mauser. A discreet word from him is enough to deter this consummate operator from going too far. "We don't encourage the use of lethal weapons," Volkard confides. "These squirrels are extremely valuable."