Distraught debt bankers at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney were tripped up by their own side after an equity analyst at the bank downgraded Deutsche Telekom stock ahead of a bumper bond issue being sold by his colleagues in the same building in London.

SSSB equity analyst Robert Mocatta cut his price target for the German telecom operator from €17 to €12 on the same morning that his colleagues on the debt side were finishing a hard sell for Deutsche Telekom's €5bn bond.