Issuer: Yell Group

Shipping is returning to the capital markets, six years after many borrowers defaulted. But are the top investment banks, which have the most direct access to high-yield investors, necessarily best equipped to lead new issues?

Issuer: Huntsman

Head of business development, MDM Financial

Issuer: ELoC 16

Their stock prices have risen, their bonds have tightened, and now they've recorded a couple of good sets of quarterly earnings. One or two even managed record or near-record earnings for the second quarter. So far it has been a good year for US investment and universal banks. Are they finally putting three years of pain behind them?

You don't become chairman of Santander Central Hispano, Spain's largest bank, and the undisputed don of Spanish finance, if you're easily flustered. But Emilio Botín is something else. He was quizzed recently by Spanish journalists about how he felt about the 150-year jail sentence he's facing for alleged tax fraud. Serene, he told them.

Afer three years of speculation about his departure, Citigroup's CEO Sandy Weil has finally named a successor. But the story doesn't end there.