Euromoney: "What is it about your client’s economic fundamentals that make it such a compelling story?"

“The sovereign always wins. Someone has to pay the sovereign bill and it is always the corporates – you can’t take on the house”

Euromoney: "So will they just pick the four banks that pitch the best?"

"I got an email from a superior asking if I thought it was a good deal. I gave a two-letter answer. Suffice to say the industry is stunned"

“They’ve simultaneously pulled off one of the most lucrative investments of all time, and crystallized a long-running missed opportunity. So, yes...tough one to evaluate”

"Well, he is German"

"It’s getting to the point where clients are looking not at which banks would be good to run the deal but which will lie to them best"

"That deal was an ambulance-chasing, low fee, beauty parade ordeal, which we were very happy to do for the league table credit"

"The worst thing is the uncertainty. Just give us a set of rules and then we’ll figure out how to work round them... I mean work with them"

Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2010

"You don’t get it. No one can fly. What do you want me to do? Go over there and blow it away?"

"Yes, but what the fuck have you done to help?"

"He’s an empty suit but a consummate bullshit artist in every way"

"The whole of Canary Wharf wobbles when he comes back from lunch"

"The biggest mistake Dick Fuld ever made in his career was not working for Goldman Sachs"

"I would rather invest in a five-times levered company with no refinancing requirement than a two-times levered company that needs to refinance"

"He was a single-handed business prevention unit"

Untitled | Untitled | Image Map

"I’m afraid he’s on gardening leave and could be for a while. You should see the size of this guy’s garden. I think it’s called Buckinghamshire"

"Where I live its not very commutable so there aren’t many bankers around. I go to dinner and I’m instantly disparaged. You know: Banker, American, paedophile..."

"You’re blue now, not green. Just remember that"

"It’s all very well looking at league tables this year, but you have to realize that one of those at the top was standing there with a gun to the clients’ heads. I think we all know who"

"They want us to take away the bull. They want us to put up the flag. I hate that fucking flag"

"It’s not the quantum of what we pay people that’s changed. It’s the shape of the payments"

Off the record is a collection of unattributed quotes from the market.

"If I was Bob Diamond I’d offer to pay Fred Goodwin’s pension because if he hadn’t bought ABN Amro, all the senior Barclays guys would be out of a job"

"I’ve no interest in Davos. I don’t know how they keep the snow from melting with all the hot air. What has Davos ever achieved except perpetuating the belief among participants that they are so very special?"

"I was going through passport control and they asked me the purpose of my visit and what I did. For the first time in my career, I thought "I can’t say I’m a banker, I’ve got to say something else – maybe I can tell them that I’m a doctor."

"Fees are way up... I mean, risk is being more appropriately priced"

"This is worse then a divorce – I’ve lost half my net worth but I still have my wife!"