Anna Lemessany, an equity capital markets professional
All client names have been changed.
5.30am: Car to Heathrow. I am on the 7.40 BA flight to Frankfurt but want to get to the business lounge early so that I can make a conference call to Edelweiss from a proper land line rather than my mobile. I have been pitching share buybacks to them for some time and have been given an 8am slot (7am London time) to go through our proposed pricing and execution strategy with their treasurer and finance director. I hope he is punctual as I'm due to meet a new client in Frankfurt at noon and can't miss my flight.
7.20am: The call seemed to go quite well. While Edelweiss gave nothing away, the treasurer seemed keen to discuss specific tactics, and we agreed that our Frankfurt head of trading would call him later that morning to follow up. Typically his line was engaged so I'll have to try when we land.
7.40am: Peace! All mobiles have been switched off and we are waiting to depart. Spend the time skimming the UK papers. This is the best part of morning flights for me.
8am: I'm keen to review the latest draft of our Tannenbaum presentation but aeroplanes are too public. Instead I start to draft a follow-up letter to Lorelie regarding our convertible presentation last week. Lorelie was clearly pushing its bankers to achieve as aggressive a conversion premium as possible. I need to steer a course between not disappointing my client by too conservative an indication while not giving our derivative desk a heart attack by being too bullish. It is the instinct of traders to under-promise and over-deliver, while the dynamics of ECM marketing tend in the other direction.
11am: We land with only a half-hour delay - pretty good for the Heathrow-Frankfurt flight. I manage to get through to our trader and ask him to call Edelweiss. In the privacy of the taxi I finally take a look at the draft Tannenbaum pitch. We are making a formal presentation to the company the following morning. There will be six of us in total, involving equity research, syndicate and ECM. My section on share buybacks is pretty straightforward and I've given it about 20 times to different German companies. There is still quite a lot of work to be done on the investment case though, and I imagine things will be hectic this afternoon to finalise the presentation and print 12 colour copies in time to get the last flight to Munich.
11.30am: Arrive at Commerzbank and cannot resist stopping for a cappuccino. Our main building houses a café that is my favourite place to relax and catch up with gossip.
12pm: The Bleistift Media team has assembled and we are waiting for our clients at reception. This is our first presentation to this media company listed on the Neuer Markt. We plan to initiate research coverage and want to impress them with our international distribution capabilities and media track record. We plan an hour-long introductory presentation followed by lunch.
1.50pm: Our presentation has just finished and our clients are rushing to the airport. They had so many questions that we agreed to skip lunch in order to save time. I'm feeling pretty optimistic we could get some business out of them.
2pm: Grab a late lunch with our media analyst and we discuss other potential targets. He is about to publish a "buy" for Hôrfunk Plus, and we agree to target them. I'm also keen to get in front of TVWorld who are rumoured to be planning a big secondary offering.
2.30pm: Strategy sessions with the ECM Neuer Markt sector heads. Following Commerzbank's inaugural Neuer Markt conference in New York, I need to plan follow-up for each of the companies that presented to make sure we remain in front of them and continue to add value. I intend to spend about half an hour with each sector head ranking priorities in terms of our research outlook, their likelihood of doing business and the strength of our competition. Complete a good session on software and am just getting my teeth into IT when the meeting is interrupted. The head of relationship management has been trying to contact me urgently, and I need to take his call.
3.15pm: We had asked the head of Commerzbank's supervisory board to make representation at board level for a senior position in Linden's upcoming disposal of Sonne. He had called back this morning and said he would need a briefing note that he would like to discuss with us at 5pm. Of course I was expected to prepare this note with less than two hours to do it. I apologise for cutting short the meeting, and grab a spare PC. Fortunately, I can log on in Frankfurt and see my files, so at least I have all my previous correspondence to work from.
5.00pm: Briefing meeting. All board members have offices on the 49th floor and the sense of power as we sit in the ante-room looking down is intoxicating. We have 30 minutes in total, and I leave feeling drained. Clients are much easier to handle.
5.30pm: Go down to the trading floor. As I'm in Munich with Tannenbaum tomorrow I've taken the opportunity to invite BlueRidge, a major Neuer Markt venture capital investor, for lunch to talk about disposal opportunities for their stakes. After a period of nervousness our traders have turned fairly bullish and confirm that they would consider bidding on some blocks. This will be good news to take to BlueRidge tomorrow.
6pm: Tannenbaum dress rehearsal. While the hard copies are printing we run through the structure of our presentation, allotting people and times to each section. Then we give it. Though embarrassing, this does help make the live run more polished, and is really useful in making sure people don't overrun their slots. As my section is last, I'm very grateful for this.
7pm: Presentations are ready and we leave for Munich. Realise my strategy sessions remain undone. Apologise profusely and offer to fly back straight after lunch to pick up IT, media and internet the next day.
