What would Wonder Woman do?

"As we suspected, it looks like Wonder Woman is losing interest in teaming up with the Road Runner." Around the conference room everyone is nodding thoughtfully. No one is laughing. The presenter, who has just hired my bank for a big M&A transaction, continues.

"I spoke informally to Cinderella this morning and suggested that she try to get in bed with Daffy Duck rather than Batman as he seems to have a stronger interest in her."

Our new client then asks no one in particular: "Is that OK with you guys, or do you think Popeye would have been a better match?"

No one speaks, but faces start to turn to look expectantly towards me and Mike. This is the kind of question that you would expect the financial adviser to answer and the spotlight is now firmly on us.

My plan of keeping quiet until I could work out what was going on seems to have failed. Just as the blood rush is about to cause my head to explode all over this nice conference room, Mike speaks up.

"Look, that sounds fine. But I think we should still keep Popeye warm in the meantime, assuming the lawyers are OK with that," he says without a hint of doubt.

The lawyers start to talk about the legality of teaming up Cinderella and Popeye, and without moving my head I whisper to Mike: "What the hell are they talking about?"

Mike pretends to rub his nose while answering: "I have no idea."

We are not hallucinating. What is happening is that everyone is using code names - which are quite common in the M&A business.

The idea is to protect the confidentiality of transactions. In the event that you need to discuss the transaction in an airport lounge, for example, you can do so without giving anything away to an eavesdropping reporter.

It's a very sensible approach, provided everyone knows what the names are. Since we've only just been brought into the transaction, we weren't around when the code names were assigned, so we're at a distinct disadvantage.

Just a moment earlier, we could have simply asked someone what the names mean, but now that Mike has pretended that we do know, that option is unavailable unless we want to look like complete idiots.

Just as I am wondering what illnesses I could convincingly fake in order to escape this meeting, one of the lawyers mentions Sylvester and our client suddenly asks: "Sorry, but who is Sylvester again?"

This is the other problem with code names. If you have too many of them, people forget who is who and the whole system collapses.

"Umm, that's actually you, sir," says the lawyer a little embarrassed. "Do you want another copy of the cheat sheet?"

My heart skips a beat. There's a cheat sheet. Excellent! The cheat sheet is a code key. If I can get my hands on one I can avoid professional embarrassment and I won't have to fake a seizure.

"Has anyone else not got a cheat sheet?" I ask, and luckily a couple of hands go up. "I'll get some copies," I say, grabbing Sylvester's cheat sheet and zipping out the door to the nearest photocopier.

Once back in the room I scan the cheat sheet. Our client, Syntacorp (Sylvester), is selling a subsidiary called Castlecomm and the transaction is called Project Cartoon. The potential bidders are Biocarfle (Batman), Rexcess Riotech (Road Runner), Cancomple (Cinderella) and so on. The conversation that seemed so baffling a moment ago is now clear. We are trying to encourage the bidders to find partners and form consortiums.

Right. Time to make an impression. With cheat sheet in hand I go from being afraid to speak to determined to make an impression. I'm not having people after the meeting say: "That guy Alan, yeah he was at the meeting, but he just sat there. Didn't contribute anything." That's a sure-fired way of not being invited back.

"I'd like to propose an alternative strategy," I say. "How about we look at getting Wonder Woman together with more than one partner. Since we have been unable to find anyone who can meet all of Wonder Woman's requirements, perhaps we should be looking at multiple partners.

"Batman and Popeye together should be able to satisfy her, and I'm pretty sure they'd be interested in a three-way partnership."

Lots of heads are nodding. One of the lawyers says: "Yes, I'd agree that's an excellent approach."