Abstract.The algorithm proposed here is a multivariate generalization of a procedure discussed by Pearlman (1980) for calculating the exact likelihood of a univariate ARMA model. Ansley and Kohn (1983) have shown how the Kalman filter can be used to calculate the exact likelihood function when not all the observations are known. In Shea (1983) it is shown that this algorithm is much quicker than that of Ansley and Kohn (1983) for all ARMA models except an ARMA (2, 1) and a couple of low‐order AR processes and therefore when we have no missing observations this algorithm should be used instead. The Fortran subroutine G13DCF in the NAG (1987) Library fits a vector ARMA model using an adaptation of this algorithm. Experience in the use of this routine suggests that having reasonably good initial estimates of the ARMA parameter matrices, and in particular the residual error covariance matrix, can not only substantially reduce the computing time but more important improve the convergence properties of the minimization procedure. We therefore propose a method of calculating initial estimates of the ARMA parameters which involves using a generalization of the concept of inverse cross covariances from the univariate to the multivariate case. Finally theory is put into practice with the fitting of a bivariate model to a couple of real‐life time ser