Any football supporter will tell you that the team is usually only as good as the person who runs it. The same applies to investment banking. The CEO sets the agenda for the entire firm. It is a highly pressurized role that will culminate in their removal if the team they manage fails to perform. And the performance that ultimately matters for bank CEOs is to deliver returns to shareholders.

UBS has made its global head of debt capital markets, Suneel Kamlani, chief of staff of the investment bank.

Summary table of top banks, with quick links to more related content on euromoney.com

Peru has set up the equivalent of Fannie Mae, reflecting the growing importance of mortgages in the country.

Hedge fund Cabezon Capital focuses on the currency and liquidity strategies of emerging market governments pursuing export-led growth. Helen Avery speaks to Michael Dooley, the fund’s co-founder and head of research.

Activist shareholders have a bad name. Helen Avery brought together a group of hedge funds to uncover the positive role that such investors can play.

Japan is slow to adopt financial market innovations, and algorithmic trading is no exception.

Summary table of top banks, with quick links to more related content on euromoney.com

RBC Capital Markets announced the completion of two of the first ever rouble-denominated bonds since the rouble became fully convertible.

Summary table of top banks, with quick links to more related content on euromoney.com

Summary table of top banks, with quick links to more related content on euromoney.com

Summary table of top banks, with quick links to more related content on euromoney.com

Given CMC Markets’ success story, it was hardly surprising that the company’s planned initial public offering in the summer of 2006 attracted so much press attention, especially in the UK.

Jochen Andritzky’s book demonstrates the importance of analysing CDS prices alongside bond prices in assessing the likelihood of sovereign default and expected recovery values. Felix Salmon examines the evidence.

This year more Americans will file for bankruptcy than graduate from college or file for divorce.

Proponents of the merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext believe it will enhance Paris’s position as a financial centre as the $14 billion deal promises to maintain independence. One cheerleader has been Daniel Bouton, chairman and CEO of Société Générale. At the Euromoney Paris Forum, held at the close of 2006, he was interviewed by Mark Johnson, Euromoney’s editor of conferences.

The Big Mac index is old hat. Who, in these health-conscious times, buys a Big Mac any more? Instead, please welcome a more pertinent yardstick for our time: the iPod index.

“I guess if Goldman Sachs can’t even read our P/E off a screen then the chances of them being good at the rest of the numbers is pretty low!”

Summary table of top banks, with quick links to more related content on euromoney.com

Summary table of top banks, with quick links to more related content on euromoney.com

Veteran broker Jeff Hurley has been lured back to the market by Tradition to broker dollar/rand. Hurley, who had been out of the market for some time after leaving Tullett Prebon – sources say that he was doing some building trade work – at one time apparently held the there-and-back, barefoot cross-Channel water skiing record. Tradition has also made further hires for its emerging markets area, including Quentin Younghusband and Neil Standen, both from Tullett, and David Rees from BGC. All will be based in London. Elsewhere, it has poached Robbie Kemp from Tullett and Glen Davies from Icap to work in its Johannesburg office.

Mergers and acquisitions are the hot topic in Tokyo as corporate Japan shifts into investment mode. And although Japan’s M&A market is flawed, structural changes are slowly under way and global bulge-bracket firms will be the ­ultimate winners. Chris Leahy reports.

Investment banks continued to ride high in 2006 on good fundamentals and the added boost of strong hedge fund and private equity activity, proprietary trading and continuing globalization. Alex Chambers assesses whether they can sustain the good times in 2007.

There are sound reasons why volatility has fallen across asset classes. But a safe bet for 2007 is that it will rise again.

Leading Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital has added yet another banker to its already impressive staff, which has extensive investment banking experience in emerging European capital markets.

There are generally clear advance indications of ECB interest rate increases. However, the precise dimensions of change over the longer term are harder to predict, leaving market adjustments trailing.

BBA writes to UK Treasury over ‘informal actions of US officials’.

OMX bids for Slovenian stock exchange.

"Go to hell"

Demand for mortgages and consumer loans from low-income borrowers will provide a big opportunity for private sector lenders, according to a new report by Merrill Lynch called The Merrill Lynch guide to emerging mortgage and consumer credit markets. The bank says currently government agencies provide a large chunk of this kind of finance. But in the long run demand will only be satisfied by building capital market instruments, such as residential mortgage-backed securities and mortgage covered bonds. The bank reckons Colombia has the strongest RMBS market in Latin America.