Straight to Hell

by John LeFevre

  A few months before, I had received a lifetime ban from Dragon-i. Normally I wouldn’t care about getting banned from a bar or restaurant, but it’s hard to function personally (as an expat) and professionally (as a banker) in Hong Kong and not be allowed to go to Dragon-i. I went back and negotiated a truce with the general manager, whereby we agreed to a one-month ban, followed by a six-month probation period, where I would be allowed in but not permitted to stay past 11 p.m. Considering that I had been a loyal customer for years, they were willing to show some leniency. Hong Kong is a city of pragmatic capitalists above all else.

  This potentially embarrassing situation is a big hit with the client. They just want to know the backstory.

  I had been at Dragon-i with a group of my friends. At some point between 1 a.m. and blackout, I looked across from our table and saw most of the Manchester United soccer team dancing and standing around a table. I am a Chelsea fan, but I recognized the players from playing FIFA on PlayStation.

  They had been doing an off-season tour of Asia and were in town to play an exhibition match earlier that day. I was at the game; the match was a joke—an insult. None of the big stars played more than twenty minutes. They warmed up in one uniform, started the match in another, and changed again at halftime. The entire trip was just about selling merchandise.

  That’s when we saw Wayne Rooney aggressively hitting on this relatively attractive blond chick. He’s married, but I wasn’t surprised. The British press had already exposed his alleged extramarital activities with a forty-eight-year-old prostitute and grandmother of two, later nicknamed the Auld Slapper.

  I was pretty wasted by this point. What followed next was the Hong Kong equivalent of “Hold my beer and watch this.”

  I walked up behind Wayne Rooney. Because of the music, he was leaning right in this girl’s face, oblivious to me standing behind him. Once I made eye contact with her, I start gently caressing Wayne’s back, pretending to hit on him while he was hitting on her.

  He snapped around and was obviously confused when he realized that it was me stroking his back. I held my hand up toward his face to initiate a high five and said, “Hey, you come here often?”

  He pushed me back and yelled, “Fook off.”

  I glanced back over at my table of friends; they were dying. Within five seconds of our encounter, Wayne had forgotten all about me and returned his focus to the blond chick. So once again, I started caressing him, working my way down to the small of his back.

  “Fook off.” This time, he shoved me back with both hands.

  I held my hand up toward his face and said, “High five?” He slapped it away, and I quickly retreated back to the safety of my table and the comfort of my drink.

  Roughly ten minutes later, I saw that Wayne Rooney now had his arm around this same girl and was so close that he appeared to be kissing her neck or whispering in her ear. I felt this sudden compulsion, almost a moral obligation, to do something.

  This time, I raced back over, leaned up next to him, placed my cheek on Wayne’s shoulder, pushed my face up against the side of his neck, and gave a slow drawn-out exhale, while at the same time caressing the small of his back.

  BANG. POW. BOOM. Punches were thrown; pushing, shoving, and shirt pulling ensued. Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes jumped in to restrain Wayne Rooney, and my friend, a former college football player, jumped in to restrain Rio Ferdinand from trying to take my head off.

  From there all I really remember is screaming, “Fuck off, ginger cunt,” to Paul Scholes as two bouncers picked me up and carried me out. It’s only when I showed up the next night that I was informed of my “lifetime ban.”

  The Mulia guys love the Wayne Rooney story. “Next time you come to Jakarta, we will take you out.” I’m not sure I would have had the same response from some of my previous clients like Unilever, General Electric, or Rolls-Royce.

  The following day, since they didn’t fly to London, I finagle a few more meetings for them with hedge funds in Hong Kong—favors that I will have to later repay with allocations on hot deals. Somehow, we manage to drum up about $70 million of interest, ranging from 11% to 12%. But it’s still not enough to justify continuing the roadshow in London. It was always going to be a tough credit to sell to European investors anyhow, and they won’t be buoyed by the tepid demand out of Asia. Without heading to London with an oversubscribed order book, there’s no hope for getting a deal done.

  The time has finally come to pull the plug, send them back to Jakarta, and focus my time on deals that have a higher probability of success. As I am explaining this reality to them, they interrupt me. “You have $70 million that’s good at 12%, right? What if you were to receive another $60 or $70 million in orders from Private Bank today? Then wouldn’t we have enough interest to go to London and put this deal together, even if it ends up being a bit smaller than $150 million?”

  The coverage banker loves this idea. All he sees are the 2% fees paid to us. Unfortunately for him, I also have to represent my other clients—the investors who would own this paper.

  I respectfully play along. “Well, okay. But we haven’t seen much private bank demand for this deal, so I don’t see how we can expect to get $60 million from retail investors.”

  “Let us handle that.”

  Two hours later, our private bank salesperson gets a call from Private Bank placing an order for $40 million. Shortly after that, she gets a call from Private Bank with an order for $20 million.

  At this point, it’s perfectly clear what is going on. They’re content investing their own money in their own deal knowing that the proceeds, minus 2% in fees, are flowing directly back to them anyway. This way, at least they’ll still get the $70 million from the other investors.

  I call my boss in New York, and he lays it out for me with remarkable clarity. “If everything you know about this deal were to appear on the front page of the Wall Street Journal tomorrow, what would happen?”

  That was all I needed to hear. The next morning, we canceled the transaction, and I never heard from or saw the Mulia guys ever again. It didn’t matter to us; we moved on to a jumbo project finance deal the following week.

  Mulia’s largest shareholder and CEO, Djoko Tjandra, was later sentenced by Indonesia’s supreme court to two years in jail for embezzling millions in bailout funds from the now-defunct Bank of Bali. He fled the country and, at last count, is currently living large in Papua New Guinea.

  The

  Lunch Break

  On my first day working in Hong Kong, a few of my new colleagues take me to lunch at a decent Chinese place in IFC Mall. It’s packed. An hour later, we’re still eating leisurely, and the place is still packed.

  “Hey, guys, thanks for taking time off the desk to bring me out to lunch.” I’m assuming that this laid-back jaunt is an exception to normal office protocol. In New York and London, lunch on the trading floor typically involves running downstairs to the canteen and grabbing a sandwich to bring back and eat at your desk. Occasionally, during the summer lull or the holiday season, we will enjoy a long lunch. But those sacred occasions are few and far between.

  In Asia, it’s not only acceptable to take two hours for lunch every single day, it’s part of the culture. The stock market officially closes. In fact, when the HKEx tried to implement measures to shorten the lunch break, there were protests.

  In the fixed-income world, activity doesn’t officially stop, but markets hibernate from noon until the London open. It’s not so much a function of taking a break as it is waiting to get a sense of how European sentiment will influence market direction. This means the typical lunch break is informally either two or three hours, depending on daylight saving time. (The clocks never change in Asia.)

  I have a feeling that this is going to get me in trouble.

  A few days later, I am once again invited to join some new colleagues over lunch—this time for a t
rip to the spa. At first, I think they have organized this outing for my bene­fit, as part of my ongoing cultural acclimation; however, it soon becomes very clear that they do this all the time. I’m apprehensive, thinking it’s going to be some grimy rub-and-tug joint. Andy, the ringleader and a rising star credit trader, reassures me: “Nah, man, don’t worry about it. This is like a five-star resort. Besides, why you gotta be racist like that?” He’s an ABC from California, or as he says, “I ain’t Chinese. I’m from Cali, nigga.” He was the kid in high school who was simply “cool” and not “pretty cool for an Asian kid.”

  The place is amazing. We change into plush bathrobes and follow the beautiful hostess into a giant Romanesque chamber, complete with marble columns and waterfalls.. We all get naked (if Asian dudes learned to manscape, it would look bigger) and hop in the hot tub. This completely redefines the notion of the “executive workout.” We bounce our way from hot tub to ice-cold plunge pool to Jacuzzi (the size of a swimming pool) and back to the hot tub. From there, we hit the steam room, the sauna, and finally back to the Jacuzzi for a rinse, all at a rapid-fire pace.

  “What’s the rush?” I’m confused as to why we’re condensing all of this amazingness into a twenty-minute hopscotch.

  “This is just the warm-up; we can’t waste too much time in here. And you’ll have plenty of time to hang out here after your massage.”

  The hostess appears with new robes and slippers and directs us upstairs to a lounge area, which is filled with reclining chairs and lined with TVs broadcasting CNBC, Bloomberg, and several local Cantonese channels. Most of the seats are occupied by older Chinese men in robes, reading newspapers, eating noodles, chain-smoking, or sleeping. There’s not another white guy in sight. The occasional sound of throat-clearing is a rather unpleasant reminder that this isn’t quite the Elysium that the first room is.

  We are immediately met by middle-aged women carrying stools, one for each of us. They hand us what looks like a menu, all written in Chinese, and then begin massaging our feet. Andy grabs my menu. “Don’t worry about it, homie, I got you.”

  Five minutes later, four girls in bikinis lead each of us away in different directions. Andy preempts my obvious confusion. “I ordered you a sixty-minute massage. When you’re finished, meet us back in the hot tub.”

  My girl takes me into a private room that resembles spa facilities you might see in at a Ritz-Carlton, but not quite at a Four Seasons. She skips the part where she’s supposed to ask me if I prefer lavender or jasmine oil and jumps right into the massage. For such a nice place, I’m surprised that she’s not more methodical. After rubbing my shoulders halfheartedly for no more than five minutes, she says, “Okay, you turn over now.”

  I roll over onto my back, and she immediately grabs my flaccid cock. Her bikini top is gone. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Massage only,” I say, somewhat reluctantly pushing her hand away.

  After five minutes more of the world’s worst shoulder rubbing, she says, “Okay, you turn over now.” Again, I oblige. Surprisingly, she starts massaging my chest. Two minutes later, she grabs my semi-erect cock. Once again, I remove her hand, this time a bit more slowly. I roll back onto my stomach and say, “Massage. M̀hgòi.” That’s Cantonese for both “please” and “thank you.”

  This process repeats itself several more times, until one of us just gives up.

  In terms of technical ability and effort, it’s the worst massage I’ve ever had, but when considered in totality—not so bad. Exactly one hour later (I wasn’t going to leave my Constantine in some triad locker room), I grab my robe and head back down to the hot tub, where my three colleagues are waiting for me.

  “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been waiting for you for over twenty minutes.” They’re more confused than pissed.

  I’m equally confused. “What are you talking about? I thought we all got hour-long massages.”

  “Why would you get a massage from a whore?” They think it’s hilarious.

  Over time, I would discover a more comfortable, Western-friendly alternative to Andy’s “jizz and jet” lunchtime tradition—in the form of a legitimate foot reflexology session. For many of us, it would become a regular habit of meeting for lunch and following it up with an hour-long foot massage. I’d also go by myself if I needed to sleep off a particularly nasty hangover.

  As I quickly learn, the Asian lunch break is sacred. For the sake of my health and soul, I find some balance, gradually developing a routine of going to the gym three days a week and allowing two days for client lunches (usually just day drinking), internal or syndicate lunches (day drinking), massages or foot reflexology (a nap), or trips home (even more fun). If I am traveling (plane drinking) or mid-execution on a tough deal (stuck on the desk), I’ll take it out of my gym time—thus preserving the two days of midday debauchery.

  Thankfully, most of the local Cantonese clients get annoyed at the prospect of lunch meetings; it infringes on their free time. So my lunches are usually with hedge fund buddies and other gweilos (colleagues and competitors). At one of my first lunches in Asia, I tag along with Dennis Lipton. He wants to introduce me to all of his clients as “the guy who decides how many bonds they get on new issues.” It’s a smart move—now they’ll call me if they don’t like their allocations. We start at 11:45 a.m. with Bloody Marys and then switch to wine with lunch. They are appalled when I excuse myself at 2 p.m. to head back to the office. At 5 p.m., Lipton has his client, a prominent credit hedge fund manager, drunkenly call into our desk, yelling, “You fucking pussy,” and vowing to keep calling every five minutes until I promise to meet them back out. I return just after six o’clock, and they haven’t moved, other than making the necessary switch to vodka Red Bulls.

  Another lunchtime ritual—more an obligation—is the roadshow luncheon. We do so many deals that when markets are stable, it’s virtually a weekly duty. Roadshow luncheons sound amazing—three-course meals in a private room at the Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, China Club, or Shangri-La. But as soon as that novelty wears off, they are dreadfully boring, needlessly high-caloric affairs.

  Since we cannot avoid them, we learn to optimize the time. The syndicate bankers generally show up at the reception early so that we can shake hands with our issuer clients and give them any updates on the deal, along with a quick review of any market developments. Then we work the room, meeting and greeting our investor clients, thanking them for coming and for their interest in the deal. Wine is sometimes offered; I always make a point of being memorably disciplined: “Would it be too much trouble to ask for a grapefruit juice? But only if it’s fresh-squeezed.”

  Once lunch starts, so does the PowerPoint presentation—one that I have seen and heard at least a dozen times. I wait five minutes, then pretend that my BlackBerry is vibrating, hold my hand over my mouth as I fake answer it, and whisper, “Hey, I’m in a meeting. Can I call you back?” I’ll wait five seconds and say, “Okay, okay, hang on. Let me go outside.”

  I excuse myself politely, tiptoe out the door, abandon any pretense of being on the phone, and head directly to the hotel bar or one of its restaurants. It takes about twenty minutes for the scheduled group of bankers (mostly syndicate guys) to stagger their exits from the presentation and reconvene. If the weather’s nice, we’ll meet by the pool; there are some very attractive tourists who flow through Hong Kong.

  Surprisingly, this is how many deals get hashed out and successfully completed; meeting face-to-face over a few drinks cuts through the gamesmanship, backstabbing, and other bookrunner antics. We’ll spend twenty minutes talking deal strategy and then the rest of the time just hanging out and drinking. We generally take turns picking up the mostly liquid tab, not that it matters. All of us are expensing it, or using a deal code to charge it back to the issuer currently sweating his way through the presentation in front of a roomful of investors.

  The roadshows prove to be a great excuse for the bankers to get tog
ether. But too often, it’s the same crew of guys from the most active bond houses. To broaden the group, one of the syndicate bankers will organize a big lunch every couple of weeks inviting every syndicate banker (minus a few of the softer souls) from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to Nomura and BNP Paribas. That poor chick at Bank of America still doesn’t get an invite, but there is a female exception rule for hot interns.

  It’s not a function of the odd depraved personality here or there; it’s systemic across the industry.

  These gatherings are typically one large day-drinking session. Unfortunately for me, given our prominence in the fixed- income world, I usually head back to the office around 2 p.m. I’m busy executing Asian deals, while also trying to help my US and European counterparts sell their deals into the region. Many of the other bankers carry these festivities deep into the afternoon, or longer.

  Despite my best intentions, it’s a real challenge to get to the gym during the lunch break—too many bad influences. A typical example: I’m packing up my standard-issue canvas bag for the gym when my dealerboard lights up. It’s Adam Mitchell. “Hey, boy-o, had a client booked for lunch, but he just bailed. Don’t make me eat by myself.” Adam, aka Mitch, is a close friend of mine from the investment bank. He is the definition of FILTH: a boisterous, energetic, British lager lout who had a few missteps early in his career in London, so he decided to move to Asia, where he has subsequently done pretty well for himself. I love him.

  That’s what friends are for. “Okay, done. Lobby in two.” We head up to the Lobster Bar and Grill at the Shangri-La, one of our go-to spots. Because the hotel also plays host to so many roadshow luncheons, it’s impossible to go there and not run into other clients, colleagues, or competitors. It’s not exactly the subtlest spot to misbehave, so I’m always anxious about going there with Mitch, even if it has been sold as a “quick, civilized lunch.”