"You shouldn’t automatically take it for granted that the world is going to end"
This is what passes for positive sentiment in today’s FIG market
"We think it’s just a speedbump"
A senior UBS banker comments 48 hours after the $2.3 billion rogue trader loss was revealed. We fear UBS’s investment bank may be about to hit a brick wall
Euromoney: "Well, hopefully we can catch up for a beer soon if things improve"
Banker: "And if they don’t we can grab an absinthe"
A Hong Kong capital markets banker ponders one solution to the current crisis
"What currency are you using to calculate your exit?"
One question posed to a private equity firm considering the IRR of a potential Irish investment does not reveal wholehearted belief in the survival of the euro
"It’s at least a novelty that my deal’s being screwed by macro. Usually it’s because the chairman’s been in jail, or the company’s been caught spewing waste into a river somewhere"
An ECM banker’s jaded take on Hong Kong’s IPO market
"It appears that the 25ish assets that they included in our closing-date portfolio that were dummies were replaced in less than 24 hours with assets that would have been notched and made the portfolio worse... Do you want to address this with them, or let it go?"
An illuminating insight into the rigours of the rating process via an email from one of the S&P analysts rating the Delphinius CDO in 2007 that is now under investigation by the SEC
"Intesa’s problem is that they have a world-class management team but don’t have a world-class prime minister"
An investor sums up the funding problems facing Italian banks
"The market is looking for something, it just doesn’t know what it is looking for"
Nor does anyone else at this stage