The story has all the ingredients of a classic internet farce: boom-crazy investors, board members with no experience of running a business, millions of euros spent on barely used technology, a CEO who disappeared in controversial circumstances, angry staff left without work, bungled deals, botched business plans, and egg on face all round. It sounds like a familiar enough story to anyone following the hi-tech boom, except that this time it involves a company set up by six of Europe's leading investment banks, and run by some of the most senior and highest-paid bankers in European financial markets.
BondClick's mission was simple - to create an electronic platform for trading European government bonds that enabled investors to see several banks' prices at the same time. It had a successful model to follow from the US market in the form of TradeWeb, which was also gearing up to be its major competitor.