Euroclear has suffered from occasional criticism that (unlike rivals Clearstream) it lacks a substantial presence in London, where most of its investment banking clients are based and issuing and trading activity in its core Euromarket products is concentrated. So it was no surprise to learn today that Euroclear has established a new primary market relationship management team in London.
Euroclear says it is part of “ongoing efforts to further improve client focus and satisfy customer demand.” The new team will be responsible for all aspects of relationship management with lead managers and issuers’ agents across the various Euroclear entities in the international marketplace.
“As the primary-market landscape continues to grow and evolve, both in terms of size and complexity, we remain fully committed to ensuring that optimal levels of support are in place to meet the needs of all the stakeholders involved in the securities-issuance chain,” explains Yannic Weber, Managing Director and head of the Commercial division of Euroclear SA/NV. “By establishing a dedicated and experienced team of relationship managers in Europe’s leading marketplace for new issues, we hope to be able to serve our clients’ interests even better, while also streamlining existing processes.”
The new team, which reports to Philippe Laurensy, Director and group head of Euroclear’s primary market relationship management teams, is headed by Dan Kuhnel, who joined Euroclear from the London office of Clearstream International on 1 April.
Euroclear says it already has a “client-facing” group in Paris, where it acquired the French CSD, Sicovam. That group, says Euroclear, “has a very strong franchise with the French issuer community active in the primary market.”
The Brussels-based ICSD adds that the primary market is a domain in which Euroclear operations, network management, product management, legal and relationship management have to work in close co-operation to co-ordinate the activities of issuers, corporate bankers, corporate trust departments, syndicate desks, law firms, and with the documentation teams that assist with the drafting of the new-issue documentation and liaise with settlement systems to ensure the new issue is deemed eligible for acceptance.
At the end of 2004, the value of international debt outstanding was US$ 13.9 trillion (Euros 10.6 trillion). New issues were valued at US$ 3.3 trillion (Euros 2.5 trillion), of which US$ 773 billion (Euros 592 billion) was issued in the eurozone. In 2003, the total value of new issues was US$ 2.9 trillion (Euros 2.2 trillion), with US$ 740 billion (Euros 566 billion) in the eurozone. The total value of securities transactions settled by Euroclear is in excess of Euros 300 trillion per annum, while assets held for clients are valued at more than Euros 13 trillion.