Energy derivatives

“I think we needed examples of bad governance to force people to change”

Shareholders of Norwegian insurer Storebrand are disenchanted with DnB after it dumped the company at the altar. Did management lose its nerve as the merger loomed or is there more to it?

Australia's largest brothel, the Daily Planet in Melbourne, is aiming to pick up investors by offering the public the chance to buy shares as well as sex.

India

CBOT, which bars futures block trading, remains its strongest opponent – most recently complaining about a rival’s reporting-time rules. Is this an objection to deals that make the market less transparent or a backstop defence of CBOT’s pit traders? And can it hold out against a strategy widely regarded as vital to modern markets?

Philippines

In the face of the most volatile markets in many people’s working lives, investors in the west are looking for safe havens away from New York and London. Is Asia the answer? Some market players think so. “There is something very special about Asia,” says one. Others label the region a perennial basket case. Who’s right?

Spain's national treasurer, Gloria Hernández García, was caught in a rather embarrassing fix at a conference last month.

South Africa

Mexico

Business fashions never take long to change. But the current fad for one-stop shopping in financial services looks like being one of the shortest lived of all.

European exchanges

Demand for prime brokers has never been so high, thanks to the proliferation of new hedge funds. Spurred on by this, State Street is the first custodian bank to offer prime brokerage. Will it succeed?

There's no shortage of clichés about Rome. Mention its name and several phrases will spring to mind: "when in Rome ... la dolce vita ... the Eternal City ... lunatic driving". It's good to see at first hand that a lot of them are soundly based on fact.

Scourge of the establishment Ian Hislop kept the audience under control at this years Euromoney awards dinner.

The recent equity collapse may well mark the end of the bear market. But I doubt it. Sure, there is a strong equity rally from oversold levels out there somewhere. And improving corporate and macro news will at some point drive it. But there are powerful opposing forces. Wealth destruction in equity markets, a plummeting dollar and rising risk aversion in debt capital markets will damage the global economy.

Bank regulators are getting tougher. There's no surer sign of that than when senior executives apologize in public. Sandy Weill, chairman and CEO of Citigroup, was the high-profile executive seeking forgiveness last month for his firm's dealings with Enron.

Restructuring, cost-cutting and consolidation have enabled some emerging-market banks to post growth and profits that set them apart from stagnant global rivals.

Until the market debacles of the past couple of years investment banks had grown used to new doors to profit opening as old ones closed. That's no longer the case and in the absence of anything better proprietary trading seems to be back in vogue.

Bank restructuring

Andrew Clark of PricewaterhouseCoopers assesses the different levels of implementation of anti-money-laundering measures needed by financial institutions to keep up with the flood of regulations from national and international authorities.

Issuer: Bank Markazi Iran (central bank)Amount: e500 millionLaunched: July 10 2002Bookrunner: BNP Paribas, Commerzbank

Insurance

Italy’s finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, is engineering major changes in the management of the country’s assets and liabilities. His goal: tax and spending cuts. Can he pull off this double feat? Probably not, but positive things may still emerge from his efforts.

What will the investment management industry look like in the coming years? What are the forces and trends that will shape that future? State Street’s David Spina looks forward.

Russia

Russia

Forget about bulls and bears. Bulls are virtually extinct in this sorry-looking market anyway. What you need to look out for are zebras and lions. More specifically, any zebra in its right mind should watch out for preying lions around the next corner.

It could be crunch time for European convertible issuers as redemptions fall due with stocks at long-term lows. Others face the prospect of investors putting the bonds back to them. Yet again it's the telecoms companies in the thick of it all.