During the roadshow the news from emerging markets was bad. Indonesia's troubles raged on and India and Pakistan were engaged in a nuclear stand-off. Moctar Fall, head of Chase's capital markets international fixed income, and his team decided to wait before launching an issue for BNDES, the Brazilian development bank.
But the situation did not improve, Russia's troubles grew worse and so did Japan's. These events had nothing to do with Brazil but they made the market environment for emerging-market credits choppy.
Eventually the deal could be put off no longer and Fall was confident it could be done using a resettable coupon with the Brazil 08 as the reference bond. Fall's faith was vindicated when the deal came and was increased from $750 million to $1 billion.
"It got everyone's attention," says Fall, who joined Chase in early 1997 after a decade at Salomon Brothers where he gained notoriety with sovereign and multilateral deals such as the first global bond for the World Bank for $1.5 billion.
Success in finance was furthest thing from his mind when he was younger.