How I Caused the Credit Crunch by Tetsuya Ishikawa

Author:Tetsuya Ishikawa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business
Publisher: Icon Books
Published: 2009-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Despite travelling back and forth over the Atlantic on an almost weekly basis, I had settled in well in New York within the first two months of my start at Orrington. The two-bedroom corporate apartment in Battery Park had quickly made way for a newly-renovated loft apartment in Tribeca that was 1,500 square feet of high-class bachelor living more than I actually needed. Still, Orrington were picking up the tab, so I wasn't complaining.

Apart from my mornings.

It made sense that I was in the office during European hours, and even if half my time was spent in Europe, I still had to endure a 4.00am start more often than I liked. The fact that no one expected me to be working that early wasn't the point. I was British, which helped, but being based in New York had the potential to arouse resentment of Orrington US-centricity among the emotionally volatile Europeans. And without their confidence and support, it was going to be tough selling more MBS and CDO deals into Europe, so I had little choice but to stagger in to the office as some made their way to bed.

'If you don't want it, there are hundreds of kids out there who cost nothing who would kill to have your job,' Massimo Gambaro would remind me whenever I questioned the bane of my existence, as one does at 4.00am.

'That doesn't make me feel any better.'

'Then eat some food!'

Otherwise known as 'Cartman' after a client noticed his insatiable appetite for anything edible, he was a highly regarded and popular 240-pound gentle giant who was part of the Global Syndicate desk in Tokyo, doing exactly what I was doing but focusing on Asia and Australasia. With the time difference, he was my only regular company over a telephone line before the first New York traders wandered in around 6.30. And between phone calls to my European sales guys selling our deals, Cartman and I not only became close, but we compared notes on how our respective mandates were progressing.

He had an even more exciting mandate than I did. Asian banks had huge amounts of capital which had yet to be significantly invested in credit, and Mitch was absolutely convinced that sending Cartman out there, wholly dedicated to selling US MBS and CDOs before any of our competitors, would give us an edge. And it didn't take long for Mitch to be proved right.

Asian investors warmed to him, and in a short space of time, banks out of Japan, China, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were investing in the AAA, AA and A tranches of our US and European CLO deals. And with Australia under his charge too, he built relationships with Aussie hedge funds that were actively buying the BBB, BB and equity tranches. Cartman had his hands full with this untapped investor base, but he nurtured them carefully so that between him, myself and the US guys, we rarely struggled to find buyers for our seemingly endless production of CLOs.

However, this was only half our mandate.

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