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The Survey
IEM Finance has carried out the seventh on-line survey of investors, who are clients of the French primary dealers (SVTs). This survey, conducted on behalf of Agence France Trésor (AFT), aims at assessing the quality of commercial relations and services provided by SVTs to their clients.
No party, not even the AFT, has any access to nominative answers other than IEM-Finance.
In 2009, 342 people answered the questionnaire.
Main results of the survey
Among the five most frequently mentioned SVTs as being the main partner of those surveyed on fixed income markets in general, there was one new SVT in 2009, namely Citigroup ( 1 - Barclays Capital ; 2 - BNP Paribas ; 3 - JP Morgan ; 4 - Deutsche Bank ; 5 - Citigroup).
Regarding the French Treasury securities market, Deutsche Bank appeared in 2009 on the list of SVTs who are the most frequently cited as being the first partner of those surveyed ( 1 - BNP Paribas ;
2 - Barclays Capital ; 3 - Société Générale ; 4 - Calyon ; 5 - Deutsche Bank et HSBC).
The fact of being a SVT remains the most important criterion when investors select an intermediary and this criterion gained in importance significantly for those surveyed based abroad in 2009. The League Tables published by the main financial media also gained in importance whereas the importance of the League Table published by the AFT remained stable. Finally, the importance of the fact of being Paris-based continued to increased slightly.
Asked what they expect from a high degree of service, clients still rank first the quality of pricing and the importance of this criterion increased in 2009. The proportion of those surveyed who consider it as “very important” increased from 83.7% in 2008 to 88.8% in 2009. This increase was also observed for the quality of information, advice and sales coverage but less markedly (51.9% in 2009 against 50.7% in 2008). On the contrary, the proportion of those surveyed who consider the quality of research and the quality of back/middle office as “very important” decreased in 2009 (38.6% against 41.9% in 2008 for the research and 30.2% against 32.7% in 2008 for the back/middle-office).
The average score of the SVTs sightly decreased compared to last year and reached 7.3/10 for the quality of research. On the contrary, it increased for the quality of pricing (7.3/10). It remained constant for the quality of information, advice and sales coverage (7.2/10).
In 2009, the number of investors who declared that the share of French Treasury securities in their government debt portfolio was overweighted decreased as compared to 2008 as well as the number of the underweighetd ones. More investors declared that they were neutral.
As in the previous surveys, the majority of clients (93.8%) are "very satisfied" or "satisfied" by the functioning of the French government debt market.
Finally, regarding the strategy of AFT to introduce more flexibility in the choice of securities to be issued, often proposing off-the-run securities, the great majority of clients (75.3% in 2009 against 74.4% in 2008) were very satisfied or satisfied. 20% of those surveyed didn't give their opinion.
Press contact:
Pierre Salaun
+33 1 4004 1550
+33 6 7224 0388