February 2000
| Euromoney February 2000 The biggest opportunities for growth and profits in
the fixed-income world in 2000 are in Europe. Corporate bonds,
high-yield, securitization will flourish. There will be a fierce
contest, as all manner of intermediaries - commercial and
investment banks, Americans and Europeans fight for a place in the
bond bulge bracket. According to the US model this should guarantee
the eventual winners a honey-pot combination of high market share
and profitability. The competition to hire the people - high-level
originators, salesmen expert at advising institutional investors
strategically, skilled and market-savvy credit analysts - will
become ever more intense. Peter Lee's report heads a series of
articles on the future of fixed income - E-commerce - Bonding on the internet
Selling of primary bond issues via the internet has
diverted attention from more revolutionary developments in
e-trading - such as the plethora of bond-trading platforms, owned
by different constellations of players, and the channelling of
several banks' research and dealing services through a single
portal. Where's it all going? Antony Currie reports - Eurobond syndicate practises - Transparency or skulduggery?
- Asset-backed bonds - New frontiers in securitization
- Quality issuers - We're dedicated followers of fashion
- Local Asian bond markets - The credit picking gets harder
Last year bond investors only had to pick the right
country to make profits in Asia. This year the focus is on
individual credits, and there are plenty to choose from. Investors need to do their homework. Governments and corporates are issuing
fast and furiously. Corporates want an alternative to bank lending,
over-reliance on which, they say, caused some of their past
troubles. Governments are issuing even when they don't need the
money, to create a domestic market and build up a curve. Pauline
Loong reports on Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and
Indonesia, Dominic Jones on Korea and Taiwan, Gill Baker on
Thailand and Malaysia. - Fixed income derivatives - There must be a betterway
Sophisticated derivatives players are still searching
for the best way to sell their wares. With specialized derivatives
teams? Or along with the cash products? David Shirreff
reports
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Euromoney February 2000
Commerzbank has defied history and set up a profitable
global equities operation from scratch. Or has it? We can't measure
the success of this adventure. Nor does the bank's management want
us to know. It's staking everything on Wunderkind Mehmet Dalman
whose empire, to his own amusement, is expanding by the minute.
Laura Covill reports
Euromoney February 2000
In 1999, the European single currency brought with it a flourishing new market in corporate bonds for a range of different quality issuers. The dollar bond market also thrived on a diet of jumbo global offerings. Syndicated loans integrated ever more closely with the capital markets to deliver huge amounts to acquisitive companies. Equity markets saw the first ever pan-European retail deal and the US markets were innovative as ever. Brian Caplen, Antony Currie, Peter Lee, David Shirreff and Marcus Walker profile the deals of 1999.
Euromoney February 2000
When a private bank due to be sold to a foreign group
ends up in state hands it's hardly a sign that all's well with the
European single market. This was the outcome of the stand-off
between the European Commission and the Portuguese government over
the Champalimaud banking group. Spain's BSCH attempted to take a
stake in the group, sparked off a huge row about cross-border
M&A and ended up with only some of the pickings. Other key
assets have ended up under state control, even if only temporarily.
From every angle the Champalimaud affair is an example of the wrong
way to make takeovers. For octogenarian banker António Champalimaud
it was a final chapter in a lifetime of battles with bureaucrats.
Brian Caplen reports
Euromoney February 2000
In theory Turkey should be a paradise for engineers,
construction companies and banks involved in the electricity
sector. Consumption is far outstripping supply and in theory state
monopolies are being opened up to privatization and foreign
investment. In practice these developments are entangled in the
bureaucratic, constitutional and financing red tape that afflicts
almost all enterprise in Turkey. Then there's the tangled
geopolitics of gas supply from neighbours. Metin Munir
reports
Euromoney February 2000
Is there a North Carolina-style dynamo waiting to whir
into action in some unconsidered part of Europe? Or is the
coast-to-coast merger triumph of what was once NationsBank and has
now taken on Bank of America branding something that can't be
replicated outside the US? Certainly, things are going to go
differently in the EU, but bank experts reckon there's a lot to be
learnt from US merger mania. The views of the new Bank of America's
James Hance and Frank Gentry, and of others eyeing Europe, are
sifted by James Smalhout
Euromoney February 2000
Editor: Peter Lee
Euromoney February 2000
Euromoney February 2000
Euromoney February 2000
Euromoney February 2000