June 2000
| Euromoney June 2000 The Spanish have proved themselves masters of the bank merger. Successfully integrating two differing cultural entities, the merged Banco Santander Central Hispano has within a year become a European force to be reckoned with. Neighbours take note. |
Euromoney June 2000
The proposed merger between the Deutsche Börse and the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is meant to reduce transaction costs and consolidate the fragmented European market for equities. This rather lopsided plan has to win the vote of all interested parties and many political obstacles stand in its way. Even if it falls through, the LSE is now in play and should make sure it sells out to the highest bidder.
Euromoney June 2000
Should the bankers who for the last two years led Nasdaq's internet IPO bonanza, until the bubble burst in April, be held in any way to blame? The new issue houses don't think so. Although they put their name to many deals which have since flopped, they were midwives to many more that made punters rich. It was impossible to slow "borderline goofy" demand when the feeding frenzy was at its height. Internet IPOs became their own crazy asset class. However those frothy IPOs, which deprived many internet companies of committed core shareholders, may hasten their doom. Antony Currie reports
Euromoney June 2000
India, once spurned by investors for its high-risk, low-skill economy, has become a magnet for foreigners who want a piece of the high-tech action in the new economy IT sector. Kala Rao reports
Euromoney June 2000
It's been a tough year for many borrowers in the international capital markets. Corporate issuers in particular have fallen quickly from grace, having been the market's darlings a year ago. Now fixed income investors across the world are increasingly risk-averse. Certain sectors of the primary markets, US high yield for example, are very difficult to access. In response to these troubles, many of those borrowers that bankers and investors have nominated to be awarded for their efforts in the past 12 months have reverted to a strategy first made popular by Fannie Mae two years ago. They are striving to produce large, liquid benchmark issues that will at least give investors the comfort that they can easily trade in and out.
Euromoney June 2000
High interest rates, volatile equity markets and investors' growing fear of event risk are making life harder for European corporate bond issuers. Analysts now question the market's growth potential. But the long-term shift from bank to bond financing in Europe seems unstoppable. By Michael Peterson
Euromoney June 2000
Default isn't what it used to be. Sovereigns failing to honour their international obligations used to suffer. They couldn't raise new money and the restructuring negotiations lasted for a decade. But times have changed. More than ever, sovereigns are tapping the bond markets which are proving a lot more flexible and forgiving than the old banking syndicates. A country can default, restructure and raise new money in a short space of time. With the help of rating agency Standard & Poor's, Euromoney looks at the prospects for emerging-market sovereigns - in default or otherwise - as future bond issuers. Brian Caplen reports
Euromoney June 2000
How do you pick winners among the disorderly rabble of hedge funds, especially now that some of the greatest market wizards of all time have lost their nerve? Soros and Robertson have left the game. Macroeconomic models no longer convince. Yet armies of the true, non-directional, or market-protected, hedge fund managers are attracting new investors. And some traditional managers are copying their game. Isn't the industry becoming too respectable? David Shirreff reports
Euromoney June 2000
Japan's government-guaranteed borrowers roared back to the international capital markets last year with a series of large new benchmark offerings. They were well received by international buyers, then favourably reappraising the Japanese economy. This year however, there has been renewed caution among government-guaranteed borrowers and a reluctance to approach international markets that have become volatile. But Japanese corporate borrowers may have to turn to the markets. Kevin Rafferty reports
Euromoney June 2000
Consolidation continues to shake up the tables as
restructuring sweeps both developed and developing nations alike. Research by Andrew Newby.
Euromoney June 2000
Retail enthusiasm for equities took off in Germany with Deutsche Telekom's first flotation. And despite tech-share volatility, individuals are also latching onto the growth-stock Neuer Markt. Legal changes and plans for a merger with London and trading links with Nasdaq look set to add to market vibrancy. Charles Piggott reports
Euromoney June 2000
The spilling over of Nasdaq volatility into emerging-market bonds has not amused their issuers. How can the fortunes of an internet start-up in Atlanta be intelligently compared with those of a tropical commodity producer, they ask, never mind that one is a company, the other a country?
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The nature of sovereign debt reschedulings
is changing as private sector bail-ins of
diverse groups of bondholders replace the
Brady-style deals that used to be negotiated
between borrowers and tight groups of
creditors. Lawyers have their work cut out.
Euromoney June 2000
Joint head of Global M&A at Commerzbank.
Euromoney June 2000
In 1998, Paribas had its best year in fixed income by a long distance and was the acknowledged king of the Ecu market, precursor to the soon-to-flourish euro debt market. Following the acquisition by BNP, however, many in Paribas' fixed-income division began to grow restless. Although Andrew Pisker, until recently BNP Paribas' deputy head of fixed income, says he "greatly enjoyed" his time at Paribas and "learnt a lot", it is reasonable to assume that he too began to feel less than settled.
Euromoney June 2000
Head of global technology banking, Merrill Lynch
Euromoney June 2000
Wholesale financial services firms have made great play of their internet ventures in the last year, seeking to present themselves both as being internet-enabled and as pioneers in reshaping financial markets. Yet in reality few firms have done any more than take their traditional businesses and put them online. The true capacity of the internet to transform financial market structures has yet to be unleashed, although pure trading is changing fast. Maybe some of the self-styled pioneers want to hold this transforming power in check. They won't succeed for long, reports Antony Currie
Euromoney June 2000
Last year it was equities. Last winter it was bonds. Now this summer foreign exchange, by far the largest market, finally embraces e-commerce. Single-dealer platforms will still be needed, but might only account for 25% of the volume. The seven-bank consortium behind FXall.com has grabbed all the headlines this month, but it is already a year or more behind two independent ventures, and years behind State Street's FX Connect, which since April has allowed other dealers on to the system. Why has it taken so long for forex bankers to accept the multi-bank approach, and what are the consequences of leaving it this late? Antony Currie investigates
Euromoney June 2000
Banks face a series of considerable challenges when appointing their heads of e-commerce, the most obvious of which is the severe shortage of senior people who can combine any degree of internet-literacy with experience in securities markets and investment banking. Many banks have settled simply for appointing experienced and trusted managers who have proved their capability in leading traditional business divisions. Yet these may not be the ideal choices. The internet is a potentially revolutionary technology which challenges many of the business assumptions these bankers have grown up with. Antony Currie and Philip Eade talk to a sample of e-finance heads at leading American and European banks
Euromoney June 2000
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Euromoney June 2000
