Euroblog
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Double congratulations are in order for UBS’s Prasad Gollakota. Not only did he tie the knot on a whirlwind wedding roadshow over Christmas, he also showed his commitment to Mrs Gollakota by making the biggest sacrifice and gesture known to banking. That’s right: he switched off his BlackBerry.
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Oh, how the grass is always, always greener. After a heavy six months of full time thumb-twiddling, when the market returned this month it seemed that everyone had apparently forgotten that the good ole days also had their tough points.
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Given that we are in a bonus season that’s likely to be a bit lighter than last year, it is understandable that some on the street are taking a moment to re-examine their career paths. Ahead of the traditional period of liquidity on the street, one global head of DCM appeared to be wondering what opportunities might be out there, and considering what attributes he had to offer.
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Who does Noel Williams, RBC’s SSA syndicate supremo, call when he’s stranded half-way up a snow-covered mountain in the French Pyrenees? Mountain rescue?
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The ladies of the Euromarkets are inconsolable at the news that one of the EM’s finest, the Del Boy of the capital markets Nick Darrant of BNP Paribas, has taken himself off the shelf in style.
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’Tis the season to be prescient, so analyst elves across the world’s financial capitals have been living in the office, sharpening their spreadsheets and dazzling the world with strategy insights such as “Skew remains flat”.
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Feathers are ruffled in corporate bond land. The seven year tranche of Vivendi’s two part bond in late November had a bit of a mare in the aftermarket, trading up to 40bp wider at one point. The bookrunners bought back about €15m of bonds to stabilise it and it returned to reoffer within a few days.
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Bad taste, aggressive — it's all in a day's work for Citi's impressive moustache-growing team. Their Movember effort has been awesome.
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Pity poor Merrill syndicate stalwart Stuart McGregor. Being the renaissance man of the SSA markets that we know him to be, Stuart went to the new Da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery recently.
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One thing we’re pretty sure the financial crises of the last four years have produced is a severe lack of sleep on the part of financiers everywhere. But never fear, one man has come up with the solution.
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With the student march on the City on Wednesday and a bunch of protestors still camped outside St Paul’s, Lloyds told its loyal staff last week that they could brave the hordes by travelling in mufti rather than the full-on banker battle dress of suit and tie.
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