Finding a place in the euro market

Has the market in euro-denominated bonds been mostly hype?

Ayesha Shah, head of funding, European Bank for Reconstruction & Development: The only hype we see is in the name. There is no substantive difference between a euro-denominated and an Ecu deal. We issued an Ecu deal, with the same one-to-one redenomination clause as a euro-style deal, in July 1996. It’s a matter of semantics when “euro” became the term for deals with this clause, but probably the market judges it to be the beginning of 1997.