Running to stand still

Every investment bank worth its salt has launched its own European corporate bond index. But as Graham Field discovers, with so many providers jostling for position in a crowded marketplace, casualties are almost inevitable.

The European credit index space is, says Richard Pagan, managing director in fixed-income research at Citigroup, “filled to overcrowding with providers”. The growth of credit investing has encouraged more banks to launch their own indices in the hope of getting clients ‘addicted’ to data and snaring a bigger slice of the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives business that fund managers do on the back of indices.

None of the providers really wants to admit that it is providing the service