The third quarter has apparently been a wash-out for Deutsche Bank's equity-linked business. Although in Europe, Deutsche is in fourth place in the league tables for bookrunners of equity-linked offerings, the bank has not done a straight equity-linked deal since May.

On the other hand, it has avoided all the disastrous deals that have marred the market over the summer, when a number of expensive issues were forced to reprice after launch. Joseph Manko, head of equity-linked capital markets at Deutsche, looks on the bright side. 'We were very close to some of these deals, but passed in the end as they got too expensive.