“Getting warmer!” Nicholas Kyprios, Head of European Credit Sales at Credit Suisse, fined £210,000 by the FSA for “improper market conduct, disclosing client confidential information and exhibiting a lack of skill, care and diligence”
From the contempt-filled Financial Services Authority press release:
“Credit Suisse acted on behalf of Liberty Global, Inc. (Liberty) during its takeover of UnityMedia GmbH (UnityMedia) which was part-financed by a €2.5 billion bond issue. So that he could market the bond to clients, on 9 November 2009, Kyprios was wall-crossed regarding the takeover and the proposed bond issue. He was given confidential information by Credit Suisse, told that it was inside information and instructed in writing not to disclose it to third parties.
On 11 November 2009 Kyprios called a fund manager to invite him to the bond issue road show. The fund manager told Kyprios he did not want to be wall crossed. Although Kyprios did not have a pre-meditated intention to disclose the client confidential information, the fund manager asked Kyprios about the bond issue and in response Kyprios engaged in a guessing game, including advising when the fund manager was “getting warmer”.
Kyprios was an active participant in the guessing game and could have extracted himself before straying into dangerous territory but he did not do so.
As a result of the guessing game, Kyprios signalled the following information to the fund manager:
- Unitymedia was potentially about to bring a big bond issue to market;
- the issue was intended to be announced the next day;
- the potential rating of the issue;
- Unitymedia would redeem outstanding bonds; and
- the issue was M&A related.”
The Final Notice for Mr Kyprios is here.
See lots more bad behaviour in our Financial services and market conduct pages.
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