The Jolly Contrarian’s Glossary
The snippy guide to financial services lingo.™
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The back page of a prospectus, which lists all the participants of the deal, their advisors, friends and relations, laid out in a hopscotch format that looks a little — not a lot — like a 4-4-2-1 football team formation, hence the “witty” name.

Red herring ninjadom

Checking the firm’s name is correctly punctuated in the football team — that is Citibank, N.A., note — can be a life’s work for a certain kind inhouse eagle cadet. We call such a fellow a “red herring ninja”.

Beyond even the ISDA ninja, the tax ninja or the Stock loan ninja, she is the purest form of inhouse counsel. She has worked for your DCM team since 1995 and her sole ability — and we should not besmirch it, for it has served her well — is to hover around the Biggs threshold of minimal legal significance, bad-temperedly correcting the typography and punctuation of his employer’s legal name — “, London Branch acting through its London Branch” is the classic — wherever he finds it on the football team of his deal prospecti.

Corporate rebrandings and regulatory mergersBrexit means Brexit, redux — can be life-defining, or at least career-elongating, moments for such a fellow.

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