Borrowers awards 2003: Bookrunners contemplate a vintage year

Primary debt capital markets picked up so significantly in May that some bankers felt able to forecast a bumper crop of issuance for the year. But with macro events so unpredictable they weren't betting their all on that outcome.

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JUST OVER A month ago when Euromoney was interviewing US debt capital markets heads about prospects for the primary markets in May, pretty well everyone was gloomily predicting a quiet month. After a strong start to the year, US issuance in March and April had been disappointing. A lot of banks were predicting that the US primary business would be be down year on year, reasoning that with no immediate prospect of economic growth, a spurt of new funding was unlikely.

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