| Christine Moran, Associate Director in the corporate lending department of IIB Bank, is responsible for large corporate relationships, structured transactions and MBOs and MBIs. An FCA, she trained with Pricewaterhouse Coopers from 1982 to 1987. |
6.30am: My morning starts with my usual light breakfast of muesli and juice. I leave my house in Ranelagh and head to the Shelbourne Gym which is just five minutes away at this time of day. I swim in the pool for half an hour which helps me prepare mentally for the day ahead.
8.00am: After picking up a cappuccino from the friendly Leinster Coffee House on Nassau Street, I review my diary and plan my day. With the phone still relatively quiet I check through my voice and e-mails and make my replies where necessary. Then I review the Irish Times, Irish Independent and Financial Times. I also update on overnight markets by accessing Bloomberg.
8.30am: At this time each day I sit down with my team to monitor progress on current transactions. With a very experienced team to support me, I am able to focus on client relationships and the negotiation of new deals whilst leaving the other team members to run with existing transactions.
8.45am: For the first client meeting of the day, I am joined by two of my colleagues from KBC Capital Markets (one of our sister companies in Brussels). We are making a presentation to a large public company on a European commercial paper programme.
10.00am: We have a deal closing this morning involving the acquisition of a UK print and packaging company by one of our clients. I sit in on a conference call to agree the closing arrangements with our solicitors and my team members, Maurice Leonard and Orla Halpenny, who are handling the transaction. After resolving two outstanding items with them, I leave Maurice and Orla to close out the deal.
10.30am: Most days I have a short meeting with John Reynolds, the banking director, to discuss business and credit issues. Today we have arranged to meet for a quarterly review of the banking department corporate plan. Our approach is to enhance business by focusing on the issues affecting our client relationships.
11.30am: I leave the office to attend a committee meeting of the Advisory Group to the Irish Marine Development Office (IMDO). The bank’s head office is in Merrion Square, so I can easily walk to many of my meetings and this morning I take a short cut through St. Stephens Green to go to the IMDO on Harcourt Street. The IMDO was established in January 2000 to promote the development and expansion of Irish shipping and related industries.
1.30pm: Today, I have a sandwich at my desk. Generally I have several working lunches during the week with clients, corporate finance advisors or venture capital companies. I try to keep at least one lunch time free to meet with friends or colleagues.
2.00pm: The next hour is taken up with interdepartmental meetings. I meet with colleagues from our specialist power unit at KBC Finance Ireland to develop a proposal for the arrangement of the senior debt finance for a new independent power project in Ireland. This is followed by a brief meeting with our economist Austin Hughes who is preparing an economic analysis of Hungary on behalf of a client who is considering a major investment there.
3.00pm: There is a follow up meeting with a management group and their financial advisors on a possible MBI of a medium sized pharmaceutical company. It is agreed that we should do some further sensitivity analysis on the financial model and we agree to meet again in two days time at which stage Derek O’Doherty, the loan officer working on the case, will have rerun the model incorporating the new assumptions.
4.00pm: I attend a credit committee meeting to discuss a proposal for the underwriting of a E50m acquisition by an existing client. The credit paper, which was prepared by another team member, Gervaise McAteer, was circulated the previous day. The credit committee meets twice a week and there is normally a lively discussion about the banking proposals. In this case we have been a lead bank to the company for over ten years and the credit committee is very familiar with the business and the management. It is agreed that the acquisition represents a good opportunity for the company and the banking proposal is approved.
4.30pm: I catch up with phone messages, touch base with my team and deal with any issues that may have arisen. At this stage I take some time out with my personal assistant, Niamh Ward. I will be out of the office tomorrow as I am on a site visit to CRH’s cement factory at Platin, Drogheda.
5.00pm: I leave the office to attend a presentation in the Merrion Hotel on the year end results of a public company.
6.30pm: Back at the office, I use the next hour to review credit papers and documentation in relation to current deals.
7.30pm: A large part of my work involves attending functions in the evenings. Tonight we are co-hosting a dinner for the management of Irish Continental Group plc to mark the completion of the ?75m financing for the m.v. Ulysses and the m.v. Normandy that was co-arranged by IIB Bank.
Late: It has been a hectic day. Most days are as hectic but never the same and it is that which makes my job interesting and challenging. |
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| Article appeared in the May 2000 issue.
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