First Avenue Partners, a hedge fund advisory firm based in New York and London, is raising money for a new multi-strategy fund of hedge funds investment vehicle that will focus on Brazilian managers. The fund, which will be managed by Brazilian investment boutique Arsenal Investimentos, plans to raise $300 million.

Last month Euromoney wrote about how the valuations service sector was heating up. Financial data provider Markit subsequently announced a new multi-dealer valuations platform. Chief executive Lance Uggla explains to Alex Chambers how the firm is broadening its offerings from credit to OTC equities.

A merger of BNP Paribas and Société Générale would be difficult to fund and to execute.

The highly respected Gavin Wells has left Citi after a 14-year stint at the bank. Wells originally joined as part of the bank’s experiment of recruiting former British army officers; he successfully marched through the ranks to ultimately head the bank’s e-commerce trading force. Following Wells’s decision to stand down, Citi has decided to use its existing forces and deploy them in more distinctly divided specialist areas.

Any product that combines the words “catastrophe” and “securitization” is going to be a tough sell in this market. But insurance-linked securities are a rare sector of spread stability and growth in the credit world. Louise Bowman reports.

We are engulfed in a tornado of gloom. Wall Street titans and employees alike have seen their share options decimated, pension pots plummet and everyone feels insecure about job security. I’m hearing that investment banks need to cut 20% of their employees to accommodate lower profitability.

Awash with cash that far exceeds domestic investment opportunities, Australia’s pension funds are continuing to expand their holdings in global and alternative assets, developing an expertise paralleled by that of the country’s banks. Chris Wright reports.

Banco Santander in Brazil has named Banco Real chairman Fabio Barbosa as the new head of the Spanish bank’s businesses in Brazil. Barbosa will take up this new role when Banco Real is legally separated from ABN Amro. Gabriel Jaramillo, the current country head of Santander in Brazil, will "provide advice and support to the office of the chairman of Santander". Jaramillo’s post will be filled temporarily by Jose Paiva until Barbosa takes over the combined operations.

If Japan’s property bubble has already expanded and popped, China’s might be close to bursting.

Even given its tumultuous history, the past few months have been especially volatile in Pakistan, highlighted by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. From a financial perspective, the country faces several problems, in particular rising inflation. Shamshad Akhtar, governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, tells Sudip Roy why, despite this, she is confident about the nation’s medium-term prospects.

Far from solving BAA’s financial problems, the CAA’s regulatory review will make life for it even worse.

India’s nascent and relatively isolated financial markets have been spared the worst of the credit crunch but leading corporates are feeling the squeeze in other ways.

Thailand’s People Power Party government bears a close resemblance to Thaksin Shinawatra’s overthrown administration, and Thaksin is widely seen as its eminence grise. The government has big plans for infrastructure development but it is highly exposed to a contraction of US export demand and the potential for inflation. Eric Ellis reports.

Even though spreads for most foreign exchange products are often so thin that they barely exist, the use of transaction cost analysis (TCA) to measure execution is on the increase.

With the public markets all but closed, issuers have turned to private and structured products to fulfil their requirements. Those who have maintained the best relationships with their investors and dealers have proved best able to ride out the turmoil, printing deals at half their CDS levels or better. Infrequent borrowers and those who have taken cheap funding for granted are in for a shock.

The Dubai Multi Commodity Centre Authority, which is owned by the Dubai government, is buying a 4.99% stake in Shariah Capital. The two companies are also creating a joint-venture investment company that will develop Shariah-compliant commodity-linked investment products.

Foreign exchange settlement system CLS has established a new record for the value of transactions processed in one day, soaring through the $10 trillion ceiling.

Despite avoiding the worst effects of the global credit crunch, Kazakh banks will need to undertake reforms in the coming months if they are to regain trust and confidence, concludes Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Ekaterina Trofimova. She says: "The Kazakh banking system has reached a decisive point in its development, with the continuing turbulence highlighting the need for a deep transformation of business practices, strategies and regulation."

Lost a billion dollars in the US structured finance market? No problem: Daddy just received a huge bonus from the global economy and will give you $1 billion to cover the damage.

The European Central Bank’s term repo window shows no signs of diminished popularity. With the European mortgage-backed market firmly shut, the central bank has continued to back securitization technology and extend liquidity for triple A-rated securities issued by Europe’s banks.

Shinsei Bank is to sell the headquarters building it inherited from its previous incarnation, Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, in order to avoid booking a net loss for a second consecutive fiscal year. The ¥118 billion ($1.18 billion) sale is to a real estate fund managed by Morgan Stanley, and will help to offset the total of ¥32.5 billion of sub-prime related losses announced by the bank so far. The bank says it will rent the space for the next three years while it searches for a more cost-efficient base. This continues a recent trend of banks selling their Tokyo headquarters, with Resona announcing on March 11 that it is seeking a buyer for its Otemachi base. Meanwhile market participants wonder what Morgan Stanley knows about Tokyo property that they don’t: in addition to its participation in the Shinsei deal, the US bank bought Citi’s Shinagawa HQ in February for just over $1 billion.

The Fed is finding innovative ways to fund US financial institutions to combat the systemic risk that has done for Bear Stearns.

ECBC plenary meeting divided about how to handle market making.

They are China’s emerging rich: hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs making money hand over fist. They want that money to work hard for them. And they are the target market for a new domestic industry: private banking. Chris Wright reports.

Twelve Wall Street firms are in the early stages of developing a single trading portal alliance platform, operated by Nasdaq, for all 144a securities. The companies hope the platform will bring liquidity and transparency to the 144a market, which has been associated with unregistered, opaque trading.

As financial stress grows, economies weaken and companies see risks looming at every turn, insurers offer themselves up as strategic risk advisers. They must prove their risk engineering skills, upgrade systems, overhaul archaic industry practices and adapt to capital market investors seeking insurance exposure. Euromoney polls 255 leading corporations to fi nd which insurers and brokers are doing the best job.

Unless Japan gets more involved in international capital markets, perhaps through a sovereign wealth fund, it is likely to become increasingly irrelevant in Asian finance.

While investment bankers in the west expect a difficult 2008, counterparts in Asia cite the successful closing of buyouts, bond issuances and IPOs during the market turmoil as proof of the region’s opportunities. Lawrence White reports.

March 7

Moody’s Investors Service has assigned a Baa1 country ceiling for long-term foreign currency debt and Ba2 issuer ratings for the Republic of Montenegro. All ratings carry a stable outlook. "Montenegro’s ratings reflect the new country’s growing integration with the European Union and the financial stability afforded by the use of the euro as the official currency," says Kenneth Orchard, a Moody’s senior analyst. "Among Montenegro’s main rating constraints are its lack of administrative capacity and relatively underdeveloped judicial institutions."