Quotes of the month

“In my old days in ECM, the moment of truth was five minutes – either you were right or wrong, and you moved on. But our moment of truth is measured in years”

Christian Meissner, head of GCIB at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has changed his own outlook to the long term, while forcing his division to do the same

“We are more likely to execute away from the banks in the mid market at the moment… Banks will say that they have appetite, but it is not always as strong as they are making out, while a lot of the funds can deliver comparable solutions in size”

Ciara O’Neill of DC Advisory represents just one leveraged fund that is relying less and less on banks’ services

“I’m not sure that any bank yet has a vision for it, but the wholesale businesses will eventually become digitized in similar ways to retail financial businesses … and you had better be on the first page of apps”

Spencer Lake, chairman of the International Capital Market Association, thinks technology is about to have a big impact on the capital markets

“What do you mean? There has always been minister representation [at the annual meeting]. I don’t know why you got such an idea. China has always regarded the ADB as very important and the level of representation by China has never been reduced”

ADB president Takehiko Nakao responds to our probing about a rumour that China reduced its representation at the ADB’s last meeting out of annoyance that the bank would not allow the country to increase its stake or countenance the dilution of either Japan or the USA’s position in order to permit it