Creditflux Newsletter

Independent credit research firm Gimme Credit’s name has been borrowed by the Coca Cola company in the UK, which has used it for a promotional tie-up with mobile phone companies.

Credit investors based in the UK who search for the company on Google now find a website pushing cans of Sprite and Dr Pepper instead of sober reports on corporate borrowers.

Congratulations to Alcentra chairman and chief executive David Forbes-Nixon who last month made it to the top of Kilimanjaro with his son George (who, at 13 becomes the youngest Briton to climb the mountain). As we reported last month, Forbes-Nixon is raising money for Operation Smile UK, which provides cleft palate and other operations for children. Readers can support him at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Forbes-Nixon.

Why did volumes in the credit correlation market drop suddenly in the last week in July? Could it be something to do with the fact that so many traders in this market hail from Tunisia (usually by way of the French university system).

A decent number of the market’s biggest hitters are understood to have gathered for the wedding of one of their number, Ahmed Triki, currently a trader with UBS. Congratulations to Triki and we hope he and his friends come back and start trading soon before liquidity dries up completely.

“Such measures [banning some credit default swaps] may not be efficient and worse may be counterproductive.”

Credit derivative traders gain an unlikely ally as Banque de France governor Christian Noyer, writing in the central bank’s Financial Stability Review, dismisses calls by some European politicians for restrictions on credit default swap trading.