Lehman Brothers
In January 2003, Lehman Brothers completed the launch and pricing of a three-tranche (five, 10 and 30-year) €3bn eurobond financing for Italian telco Olivetti. It was the first ever 30-year public eurobond issue in the corporate market and the first telecom transaction of the year. The judges were impressed, believing that it opened the long-dated corporate euro market and led the way for the subsequent slew of telco issues.
Prior to January, conventional wisdom dictated that the European market was not ready for corporate long bonds, but a two-times oversubscribed order book swiftly proved that axiom wrong.
Lehman has a strong reputation as a debt house but its ranking in the top two of global bond houses, number one in European telco issuance and its growing strength in Tier 1 capital – through which it pioneered the development of an Asian investor base for issuers such as LB Kiel and SEK – illustrate that it is a position which it works hard to maintain.
Jeffrey Weiss, global head of debt capital markets, says: “The past 12 months have been a roller coaster ride for the bond markets: from high volatility, credit concerns and uncertainty over economic recovery, to the best new issue market conditions in more than a decade, with lower volatility, continued recovery in most credit sectors and more optimism about economic recovery. In this challenging environment, issuers and investors have, more than ever, based their choice of capital markets partners on their quality of advice, consistency of coverage and execution. And our operating model has thrived, based on a seasoned leadership team and consistency of client coverage delivering a first class product.
“We are proud of our achievements in the debt markets over the past year in terms of volume, breadth of issuer type and structure and quality of execution. The amount of repeat business we have won is testament to what we believe to be Lehman Brothers’ differentiating strengths in the fixed income new issue market.”
