July 2006
| Euromoney July 2006 A benchmark for high-quality products and services across all areas of commercial and investment banking, the Euromoney Awards for Excellence define banking excellence in global categories and across 110 individual countries. These annual awards set the standards for banking and capital market excellence amongst the top ranking financial institutions around the world. - Euromoney Awards for excellence 2006 Off the Record Special
- How Stan O’Neal transformed Merrill Lynch
When Stan O’Neal took over as president and CEO of Merrill Lynch in 2001, the thundering herd of the 1990s was clapped out. O’Neal imposed a ruthless cost-cutting strategy that saved the firm’s independence. Now his rebuilding plans are starting to bear fruit. Can Merrill heed the lessons of the past, but at the same time make it back to the pinnacle of investment banking? Clive Horwood reports.
- Can Daniel Bouton’s unique vision drive SG forward?
Daniel Bouton, chairman of Société Générale, plays the game by his own rules. He doesn’t believe that to be a successful investment bank you have to be a global player with a franchise in almost every market. He won’t be rushed into acquisitions. And he thinks that French banks have an exciting story to tell. Having put potential high-growth markets such as equity derivatives and emerging Europe at the heart of his bank’s engine room, is he about to turn the accepted wisdoms on their head? Clive Horwood reports, with research by Lawrence White.
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Euromoney July 2006
The structured credit market has truly come of age. The correlation meltdown of 2005 spurred a new round of innovation, and shook out the weaker players. A new willingness on the part of investors to buy every part of the capital structure has encouraged the creation of a new suite of products, with more to come. However, with these new products come new risks. Now, more than ever, choosing the right manager is crucial.
Euromoney July 2006
Asia’s private banking ranks continue to swell as a benign market lures in more entrants. Costs are escalating and so is product pricing. Market growth may yet hide banks’ hubris but any reversal in trends could leave some dangerously exposed. Chris Leahy reports.
Euromoney July 2006
Private bankers are intent on finding value for their investors by identifying and harnessing influential emerging economic and social trends. Chris Wright reports.
Euromoney July 2006
A government committed to reforming Portugal’s public sector has also shown that it cares about capital markets. A recent 30-year bond issue signalled a new focus on developing the yield curve and a new covered bond law promises benefits for both issuers and investors.
Euromoney July 2006
All the fundamentals are in place for rapid expansion of the Mexican MBS market. When financing structures are fine-tuned, foreign investors should move in to boost growth. Felix Salmon reports.
Euromoney July 2006
After an adverse court judgement, any attempt to revive the SEC’s 2005 ruling on hedge fund regulation looks unlikely to succeed unless a so far indifferent Congress is spurred into action.
Euromoney July 2006
The structured credit market desperately needs new and different buyers of equity tranches to avoid an eventual sharp and painful sell-off.
Euromoney July 2006
The US bank confirms its top position in the league tables.
Euromoney July 2006
The merger of Caisse d’Epargne’s and Banque Populaire’s investment banks and asset managers opens up the possibility of even more consolidation in France.
Euromoney July 2006
The CIS markets offers lucrative investment opportunities despite the broader emerging markets sell-off.
Euromoney July 2006
Corporate hybrid bonds are living up to expectations of poor performance in a bearish market.
Euromoney July 2006
Is it time to reconsider the make-up of equity portfolios?
Euromoney July 2006
The real test of Goldman Sachs’s new model will come in a prolonged downturn.
Euromoney July 2006
The cost of raising tier 1 capital has increased on both sides of the Atlantic, but there might be light at the end of the tunnel.
Euromoney July 2006
Simplify, simplify, simplify. Thoreau’s mantra is good advice for rating agencies when it comes to allocating equity credit.
Euromoney July 2006
The US investment bank’s move points to a greater focus on the FIG hybrid capital sphere from its DCM coverage teams.
Euromoney July 2006
Key structural alterations have been made to UBS’s fixed-income business that involve the vertical integration of sales and trading in four product areas: investment-grade credit, MBS/ABS, European government/Libor derivatives, and US Libor flow derivatives.
Euromoney July 2006
Bradford & Bingley’s treasurer, Peter Green, and head of capital markets and securitization, Mark Winter, want to regain ownership from investment banks of their institution’s dialogue with investors. They are following a simple strategy of diversifying the investor base. Allied to a remarkable level of transparency during the printing of new issues, this is already reaping its rewards. Alex Chambers reports.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney’s Global Borrowers and Investors Conference last month brought the great and the good of the world’s fixed income markets together in London for the 15th year in a row.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Are the much-hyped credit derivative product companies now lining up to launch relying on an arbitrage that is dangerously close to disappearing?
Euromoney July 2006
The first securitization of US home equity loan risk to be denominated in euros came to the market at the end of June via Countrywide Financial.
Euromoney July 2006
Efforts to launch a CMBS index in Europe have foundered, so the proponents of the product have now decided to abandon the original project and start again.
Euromoney July 2006
The refinancing of the Grupo Ferrovial takeover of BAA will be a showcase for infrastructure securitization, the first of a number of high-profile deals expected this year.
Euromoney July 2006
Standard & Poor’s new evaluated pricing service joins an increasingly crowded field in the race to improve price transparency in European ABS.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
It seems no business is too small as the leading sell-side players look to increase their FX trading volumes. ABN Amro is the latest bank to join the fray.
Euromoney July 2006
A sharp sell-off in the Turkish lira illustrates once again that there’s no such thing as a free lunch in the FX markets and has left speculators well and truly plucked.
Euromoney July 2006
An e-mail has been circulating, purportedly detailing certain phrases unlikely ever to be heard in any sell-side FX trading room. In no particular order, they are:
Euromoney July 2006
The CME has announced plans to list futures and options on Chinese renminbi against the US dollar, euro and yen.
Euromoney July 2006
Rumours are doing the rounds that an extremely large North American pension fund has taken a big hit in FX.
Euromoney July 2006
But could publicly listed private equity funds stymie their development?
Euromoney July 2006
With some institutional investors still indecisive about allocating investments to hedge funds, and some still struggling to get to grips with portable alpha, it’s a relief to know that others are so ahead of the curve that they are putting the two elements together.
Euromoney July 2006
Little-known London-based Cheviot Asset Management has poached 50 investment management professionals from UBS and other leading investment firms as it relaunches itself as an independent private client asset management group.
Euromoney July 2006
High net-worth individuals (those with more than $1 million in financial assets) increased their wealth by 8.5% in 2005, according to the 2006 Capgemini/Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report. And the number of HNWIs rose by 6.5% to 8.7 million.
Euromoney July 2006
Twenty-one year-old Hakan Yalincak pleaded guilty to fraud after raising $7.4 million to invest in a non-existent hedge fund.
Euromoney July 2006
Self-made billionaire Mark Cuban, who bought basketball team the Dallas Mavericks with proceeds from the sale of his shared company Broadcast.com to Yahoo!, is launching a website aimed at exposing corporate fraud.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
The primary equity market is the latest victim of the sustained falls in stock markets around the world, now into its second month.
Euromoney July 2006
Equity-linked bankers are among the very few people who actually like to watch markets fall. This is because depressed equity prices and elevated volatility help to make convertible bonds a lot more attractive, especially given the rising interest rate environment.
Euromoney July 2006
Barclays Capital has expanded its electronic trading platform to offer secondary market liquidity in all the bank’s equity structured note offerings.
Euromoney July 2006
The equity market’s violent reaction to seemingly innocuous data has puzzled many commentators. At first bond investors reacted much more calmly to inflation fears but subsequently they seem to have been infected by the equity investors’ pessimism.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
The World Cup stoked football fever and passion among fans all over the world but cool-headed investors have been totally unmoved.
Euromoney July 2006
Emerging markets have not responded well to the recent wobble of international stock markets. But if IPO activity can be considered as an indicator for economic expectations in a market, investors still have plenty of confidence in wide-ranging growth in Russia.
Euromoney July 2006
Greater liquidity is expected to flow into the Russian debt markets after the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, successfully pushed for rouble convertibility to be brought forward from January 1 2007 to July 1.
Euromoney July 2006
The recent sale of the first Islamic compliant securitization originated in the US is likely to open up a new source for the sukuk market, bankers believe.
Euromoney July 2006
South Africa’s securitization market has developed so rapidly that it has today reached a level of sophistication that the US and Europe took more than 20 years to achieve, according to consultancy firm Deloitte. And the emergence of bank balance-sheet transactions is set to keep bankers busy in coming months.
Euromoney July 2006
Ever since Kuwait amended its banking legislation in early 2004 to license foreign banks, outside players have continued to show confidence in a high-potential market.
Euromoney July 2006
Kuwait’s largest project financing to date closed on June 14.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
The panel for the second session at Standard Chartered’s China and Africa forum had already faced some tough questions on poverty and corruption, so they must have been uneasy when the Standard Chartered banker who popped up at the last minute took an even tougher line.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Argentina’s central bank president reckons that it will take at least another two or three years before his country’s economic variables normalize. Martin Redrado says that although Argentina has made progress since the 2001/02 financial crisis, more patience is needed before it can achieve sustainable growth.
Euromoney July 2006
Investors might be keen to get out of Latin American assets right now, but that doesn’t mean they’ve fallen completely out of love with Brazilian debt. The Brazilian government tried to take advantage of the turbulent markets by announcing a $4 billion tender offer in June; the offer was a spectacular failure, attracting just $1.2 billion in bids.
Euromoney July 2006
One of the more successful hedge funds in Latin America, Copernico Capital Partners, is sitting on the sidelines as the market volatility continues, having presciently disbursed most of its Argentine holdings back to investors in April.
Euromoney July 2006
If Latin IPOs had a resurgence until a couple of months ago, so did structures that were either untried or hadn’t been used in years.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Hot on the heels of its highly successful $11 billion IPO in Hong Kong, mainland Chinese state-owned Bank of China is listing in Shanghai, raising an additional $2.5 billion.
Euromoney July 2006
As stock exchange consolidation catches on around the world, it’s sobering to note the lessons of the Australian experience.
Euromoney July 2006
New fund gives access to 1,353 listed companies on Shanghai and Shenzhen’s markets, compared with 118 H-share stocks and 88 red chips.
Euromoney July 2006
Foreign institutions considering an M&A foray into the financial services sector in Asia might want to pick up a copy of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ recent report on the matter before doing so.
Euromoney July 2006
If you’re fed up with the poor performance of Asia’s equity markets recently, but still have a strong stomach for risk, consider Vietnam.
Euromoney July 2006
Too few fund managers are paid to make asset allocation bets. That creates opportunities for those that do.
Euromoney July 2006
Less liquidity in equity markets suggests that investment strategies harnessing volatility are appropriate.
Euromoney July 2006
Jürgen Stark has taken Otmar Issing’s seat but Issing’s old role has been split, reinforcing collegiality on the board.
Euromoney July 2006
“Enter the scotch-drinking, table-dancing, back-stabbing world of stocks and bonds.”
Euromoney July 2006
All banks have to deal with non-performing loans (NPLs) and delinquent debtors. In Indonesia, a market with weak bankruptcy laws, rampant corruption and family-controlled corporations, the problem is serious.
Euromoney July 2006
This year the annual UBS financial institutions’ summer conference was held in Valencia just as the football World Cup was starting.
Euromoney July 2006
When Euromoney's journalists were able to do a bit of work between World Cup matches in June, football was never far from our minds. And so it was, as we decided this year's winners of the awards for excellence, that we hit upon a related idea: if investment banks were countries in the World Cup, which would they be?
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
When Stan O’Neal took over as president and CEO of Merrill Lynch in 2001, the thundering herd of the 1990s was clapped out. O’Neal imposed a ruthless cost-cutting strategy that saved the firm’s independence. Now his rebuilding plans are starting to bear fruit. Can Merrill heed the lessons of the past, but at the same time make it back to the pinnacle of investment banking? Clive Horwood reports.
Euromoney July 2006
What lessons did Stan O’Neal learn from the restructuring of Merrill Lynch at the turn of the decade? What are Merrill’s plans in mortgages, private equity and asset management? And what continues to drive Merrill’s CEO forward? O’Neal reveals all to Clive Horwood in his first in-depth interview since becoming the firm’s chairman and CEO.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Daniel Bouton, chairman of Société Générale, plays the game by his own rules. He doesn’t believe that to be a successful investment bank you have to be a global player with a franchise in almost every market. He won’t be rushed into acquisitions. And he thinks that French banks have an exciting story to tell. Having put potential high-growth markets such as equity derivatives and emerging Europe at the heart of his bank’s engine room, is he about to turn the accepted wisdoms on their head? Clive Horwood reports, with research by Lawrence White.
Euromoney July 2006
Euromoney July 2006
Daniel Bouton, chairman and CEO of Société Générale, discusses in detail his bank’s culture and strategy with Euromoney’s editor, Clive Horwood.
Euromoney July 2006