International Equities: Issue now - before the next crisis
It could have been a very different story if it were not for SwissCom. The privatization of the Swiss telephone company in October last year saved the international primary equity markets from the same fate as its US domestic counterpart last year. The France Télécom offering had already been pulled, and those for Finland's Sonera, Poland's TPSA and Greece's OTE were hanging in the balance. A drought looked inevitable. "As this was the Swiss government's first privatization, there was added pressure to make sure the deal went well," says Nishit Kotecha, syndicate head at JP Morgan, joint global coordinator with Warburg Dillon Read. "And in the market environment of the last quarter of last year it would have been no surprise if the deal had been pulled. Swiss equities had been dropping 4% a day in the week before we priced the deal, and there was little retail support as the Swiss press and public had never really taken to the idea."
But it was a landmark offering, and the major institutional investors, many of whom had been cash-rich since calling the top of the market in July, were waiting for someone to take on a leadership role.