IFR Special Reports

A man on a mission

IFR’s 2000th special issue would be incomplete without recognising the achievements of Hans-Joerg Rudloff, the man at the centre of many of the key developments in the Euromarkets since the formation of IFR. He spoke to Keith Mullin. The Eurobond market owes its history of largely unbroken success to no single individual. The formative period of the 1960s and 1970s followed by the phase of explosive growth, globalisation and breathtaking innovation of the 1980s and 1990s have their hallowed lists of progenitors, progressive thinkers,...Read more

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Stories in Special Report

1977: US$100m deal for Bank of America: the first private-label MBS

From little acorns

IFR: how it all began

Donald Last, the man who typed the first issues of what became IFR, remembers the foundation of what was then the Agefi Bondletter – and the man who started it all. Every Friday evening Christian Hemain would come down to Sevenoaks with his Eurobond notes stuck in his pocket and catch a cab up to my small publishing office in the high street of this small town in Kent, southeast of London. After a cup of coffee and without further ado we would sit ourselves in front of an IBM “golf ball” correcting typewriter – an essential and crucial piece of...

The deals: 1974 to 1983

IFR’s top 40: The following selection of deals represent, if not the “best” transactions from the past 40 years of the capital markets, then IFR’s favourites. The deals stand out for a variety of reasons, but a couple of things unite them all: their ambition and their creativity. Two words that, for good or (sometimes) ill, sum up the capital markets industry in that period.

1986: Canada’s US$1bn 9% due February 1996 – 'The Nines'

‘A special deal’ - Not many bond issues enjoy such iconic status as to warrant a party to mark their redemption. But that is exactly what happened when the “Canada Nines” matured in February 1996 after a 10-year lifespan that had seen it become easily the most liquid Eurobond. Not many bond issues enjoy such iconic status as to warrant a party to mark their redemption. But that is exactly what happened when the “Canada Nines” matured in February 1996 after a 10-year lifespan that had seen it become easily the most liquid Eurobond. The event was...

The global financial system: my part in its downfall

IFR columnist Anthony Peters recalls his time at the heart of the structured credit boom. What did it have to do with proper lending? Not a lot. But it is wrong to dismiss the value of structuring entirely, he writes. I have enjoyed a long and modestly successful career in the City. Had it been unsuccessful, I would have been spat out long ago and would now probably be teaching either economics or modern languages at a minor public school. Had it been highly successful, I would probably be retired due to excess wealth. In the event, I am...

Forty years at the heart of international markets

Thierry Naudin, a former associate editor of IFR, recalls the early days of the journal that became IFR – and the phenomenon that was founder Christian Hemain.

The birth (and troubled life) of CDS

If some interpretations of the events of the past few years were to be believed, an alternative headline for this story would be “something wicked this way comes”. But the truth about CDS is more complicated, writes Christopher Whittall. Towards the end of the 1980s, one large lender approached Bankers Trust with a thorny problem. The bank in question was extending a multi-billion dollar lending facility to one of its most important blue-chip customers and was going to struggle to warehouse the entire loan. There was a catch, too: it didn’t...

Warrants and stock bubbles: when Japan ruled the world

Keith Mullin looks back on the era when Japanese banks surveyed the international markets from a position of apparently unassailable strength. Take a look at any broad yardstick of international investment banking achievement today. Four of the Japanese Big Five CIBs and investment banks – Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui, Mizuho, Nomura and Daiwa – are in the top 20 of global fee earners. Yet at the same time, it is probably fair to conclude that their positions in M&A as well as debt and equity underwriting are modest relative to their size...

World leader: the borrower that shaped the bond markets

The World Bank has always been at the forefront of the global debt markets, not just in terms of issuance but also in the leadership it has shown and its commitment to innovation, says John Geddie. Some 25 years ago a newly-recruited funding officer at the World Bank sat down and started to pen a note to its board of directors explaining how the bank had been trying to improve bond offerings for investors. For an entity whose main fiduciary responsibility was simply to get the best possible funding rates for its government shareholders, this...

A history of the past 40 years in financial crises

Markets, despite their collective expertise, are apparently destined to repeat history as irrational exuberance is followed by an equally irrational despair. Periodic bouts of chaos are the inevitable result. Financial crises have been an unfortunate part of the industry since its beginnings. Bankers and financiers readily admit that in a business so large, so global and so complex, it is naive to think such events can ever be avoided. A look at a number of financial crises over the last 30 years suggests a high degree of commonality: excessive...

1987: £7.2bn BP privatisation: the deal that defied Black Monday

For some, memories of the Thatcherite 1980s are dominated by football hooliganism, the cavernous North-South divide and the ascent of Welsh miners to the surface and straight on to the dole queue. Among Thatcher’s many champions – more for economic achievements than social – are students of the equity capital markets for it was through her privatisation programme that global ECM took on its current form. “The British privatisations really set the stage for the globalisation of the equity markets,” said Eric Dobkin, founder of the ECM group at...

The deals: 1984 to 1993

It wasn’t the first perpetual deal – that came from Citicorp in 1980 – but it was the first “true” perp in that, unlike the Citicorp transaction, it could not be redeemed at the behest of noteholders – only by the issuer itself.

1997: China Telecom's US$4.2bn IPO: landmark privatisation

Creation of a national champion - It is hard to imagine many more challenging times than late 1997 to attempt a record-breaking Asian IPO. The Asian crisis had begun in May, and the effects were soon to feed through to the Hong Kong market. It is hard to imagine many more challenging times than late 1997 to attempt a record-breaking Asian IPO. The Asian crisis had begun in May, and the effects were soon to feed through to the Hong Kong market. Against this backdrop, China Telecom, since renamed China Mobile, achieved the largest Chinese...

2001: Glas Cymru’s £1.92bn bond: foundation of secured bonds/WBS

In the flow - Glas Cymru’s £1.92bn whole business securitisation from 2001 was a complicated animal, mixing wrapped and unwrapped, conventional and index-linked bonds (both LPI and CPI) – all timed to take out an acquisition financing with a sterling bond deal unprecedented in size. It was a journey into uncharted waters, but it worked to drive utility financing to a new level. Glas Cymru’s £1.92bn whole business securitisation from 2001 was a complicated animal, mixing wrapped and unwrapped, conventional and index-linked bonds (both LPI and...

The deals: 1994 to present

1994: Republic of South Africa’s US$750m bond – the post-apartheid international debut It was “our most important financing this year – both in investment banking terms and in world terms”, a banker at one bookrunner told IFR when the deal was completed. Nelson Mandela had been elected President of South Africa in April and before the year was out the sovereign had returned to international debt markets. The US$500m five-year bond issue, lead-managed by SBC and Goldman Sachs, was upsized by 50% and priced at 193bp over US Treasuries....

2000: PCCW’s US$12bn financing for takeover of HKT – jumbo LBOs hit Asia

Paving the way - To many in the UK, Doncaster is a slightly down at heel town in Yorkshire, boasting (if that is the right word) a perennially under-achieving football team. For all those involved in financing the US$35.9bn takeover of Cable & Wireless HKT by Pacific Century CyberWorks in early 2000, though, the name means something very different. To many in the UK, Doncaster is a slightly down at heel town in Yorkshire, boasting (if that is the right word) a perennially under-achieving football team. For all those involved in financing the...

2004: Google’s US$1.67bn auction IPO: listing of a tech colossus

When algorithms meet ECM - Google’s decision to opt for a rarely used modified or “dirty” Dutch auction to complete its US$1.67bn IPO in 2004 was far from an unreserved success but the idea retains a place, if a rarely accessed one, in the ECM toolkit. Google’s decision to opt for a rarely used modified or “dirty” Dutch auction to complete its US$1.67bn IPO in 2004 was far from an unreserved success but the idea retains a place, if a rarely accessed one, in the ECM toolkit. From the perspective of IPO investors, time has proven Google’s IPO...

1997: JP Morgan’s US$700m Bistro bond: the first CDO

Start of something big - About a week before Christmas 1997, JP Morgan launched the rather clunkily named Broad Index Secured Trust Offering, a US$700m bond issue referencing a portfolio of more than 300 corporate and public finance credits across Europe and North America. About a week before Christmas 1997, JP Morgan launched the rather clunkily named Broad Index Secured Trust Offering, a US$700m bond issue referencing a portfolio of more than 300 corporate and public finance credits across Europe and North America. When it comes to trades...

40 years in review

What better way to mark the 2,000th edition of IFR than to look back at some standout deals completed since our first issue was published on March 22 1974? Though the sharp-eyed will realise that there are still some months to go until our 40th anniversary (don’t worry, we won’t do this again at that point), we can claim that we are in our 40th year, so we highlight 40 deals. All were outstanding in one way or another, but we make no pretence that these are the “best” capital markets offering in that time. Rather, they are the ones that in...

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