MTN Leak

The banking world isn’t averse to some fairly wild initiation ceremonies, but Citi’s EMTN desk newbie is certainly wiser for the experience after the team’s Big Night Out. The all-male desk ended up in Tiger Tiger after their annual drinks turned into a late night boozing session.

A European crisis was once again the talk of MTN desks this week — no, not the boring old eurozone debt shenanigans, but the format of the football 2020 European Championships.

Hearty congratulations this week go to MTN royalty, as Royal Bank of Scotland’s Henry Coyle tied the knot in New York last weekend.

It wouldn’t be the run up to Christmas without Kommunalbanken’s annual party at the Norwegian ambassador’s residence and thankfully this year again it didn’t disappoint.

Christmas isn’t far away now, and already the MTNs market is revving up to enjoy the festive season. Dealers are gleefully listing off the party invitations flooding their inboxes, in the same way that the most popular girl at school gloats to her less fashionable friends about how many Valentine’s cards she’s received.

Bond fever hit the MTN desks — and no, we’re not talking about the sovereign, financial or corporate variety. The latest 007 flick Skyfall got our brains working on who would be who in the MTN James Bond universe.

Leak would like to issue a sincere and heartfelt apology to Paul Sullivan of Crédit Agricole. Because of certain things brought into the public domain by this very column, Paul’s nose has been very thoroughly assaulted.

We’ve always known that Société Générale’s Yannick Lakoue-Derant was both a big sports fan and one of the sharpest business minds around, but his latest marketing exercise left us confused.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s MTNs desk has developed a new press policy — instead of doing PR the old fashioned way, they send members of the team out dressed up in ghoulish costumes threatening to glue newsroom doors shut if reporters don’t offer favourable coverage.

Crédit Agricole’s Paul Sullivan and Elen Oker were Leak’s companions for lunch this week at the Michelin Lamberg-starred restaurant Piccolino in the City.

Conditions were tough for MTN dealers this week, what with holidays in Europe and Asia, along with investors and issuers sitting on their hands ahead of the latest ECB rate decision.

It is with great honour we that we can introduce a new MTN personality: "Mr Chubby".