MTN Leak

Are some of the MTN world’s biggest party animals getting over the hill?

Leak got very excited this week, for we thought we were on the verge of discovering one of the greatest secrets of modern cuisine — more famous than KFC’s 11 herbs and spices, more fortifying than Irn Bru’s girders. Yes, we thought we were about to discover the secret ingredient in Iceland’s famous brew Brennivín that makes it the only suitable chaser to such Icelandic treats as preserved goat's testicle.

If anyone was short of yet another idea of how to divide cities up into arbitrary pieces — take the attempted rebranding of Holborn as Midtown — Leak would like to throw our hat into the ring. London will be the prototype for this method, but eventually we will be rolling out the system across the world’s financial centres.

MTNers were given offers they couldn’t refuse over the weekend — leading to a distinctly Godfather-esque feel to this week’s market.

Here at Leak, we like to think of our fine and mighty column as the prime source of fun and laughter at the end of everyone’s busy working week. So we were shocked to hear we may have a competitor in the comedian stakes.

UBS’s David Morland thought that he’d be in for a treat over the weekend after being invited for a trip on what was supposedly the world’s biggest canal boat — complete with 10 bedrooms.

It was a starry-eyed MTN world that picked up Leak’s calls this week.

Leak always likes to fret about those less fortunate than ourselves. So please spare a thought for poor Anshuman Mehta of HSBC, who had to make a journey to central and eastern Europe in tough conditions this week.

Leak took full advantage of the gorgeous weather over the last few days to squeeze in some lunches with the market’s top brass. But never fear — we of course worked off all those excess calories by doing lots of sport. Well, talking a lot of sport, mainly.

What’s hairy, scary and dangerous? No, we don’t know either, but we’ll be finding out in August.

Maybe it’s the start of Wimbledon, maybe it’s the three whole days of sunshine we’ve had in June, but it’s indisputable — there is sporting fever in the MTN markets.

With the beginning of the end of US quantitative easing hanging over our heads, Leak was pleasantly surprised to see markets reacting with such calm (ahem) to the demise of something that prompted fury when brought in more than five years ago.