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.

Demand for Islamic finance products is high. At last supply is starting to meet investors’ needs. The challenge for the industry is to ensure that the market’s infrastructure develops sufficiently quickly so that more companies and entities continue to embrace Shariah-compliant techniques. And on the following pages Euromoney profiles the winners of the latest ­Islamic finance awards.

Nigeria has announced plans to clear the last of its commercial debt, taking it one step closer to entering the debt capital markets in 2007. Last year Nigeria was poised to issue its first Eurobond deal, for $1.5 billion, which was thought necessary to pay off its London Club debt. But then the government pulled the deal, realizing that the debt could be cleared from its rapidly growing international reserves. Now president Olusegun Obasanjo hopes to enter the capital markets in 2007, once his country’s remaining $912 million of London Club debt is extinguished and political uncertainties have diminished.

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

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.

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.

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

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

In Euromoney’s November 2006 issue we reported on Ritchie’s restructuring plan for its ailing multi-strategy fund. Doug Rothschild, Ritchie’s chief administration officer, explained how investors had agreed to have the assets split into two share classes: an equity class one with a 3.25 year lock-up, and a redeeming class that provided a schedule for the return of funds to redeeming investors over 2.5 years. As such, redemptions would be slowed, longer-term private-equity type investments could be made, and investors would then receive their money back, possibly with a return.

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

The takeover battle between Marfin and Piraeus pits two Greek banking heroes against each other. It also raises the question of domestic consolidation at a time when Greek banks are focused on expanding abroad. Peter Koh reports from Athens.

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs comprise the new three-firm bulge bracket in the debt markets. That’s what respondents to our three key customer polls in 2006 tell us.

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.

Three more former employees of struggling hedge fund Pirate Capital have joined FrontFour Capital, an event-drive fund set up by ex-Pirate Andrew Stotland. The fund launched in January and is reportedly seeded by Weston-Atlas Partners, a joint venture between London-based alternative asset management firm Atlas Capital Group and Weston Capital.

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.

Perceived as dead and buried three years ago, a $564 million purchase price stuns the market.

It’s good to see that the top men in the multilaterals are devoting time to looking after the interests of the man in the street and not just governments. Or so the Nigerian 419-style scamsters would like to have us believe.

Islamic finance is a natural home for structural innovation. Even the most basic Shariah-compliant products necessarily involve some degree of structuring: finding methods to mimic the economic benefits of conventional financial products while maintaining a religiously acceptable asset base. Now, though, banks are taking this structuring a step further. Chris Wright reports.

Some investors are due to reduce holdings in favour of single-strategy peers.

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.

Arne Hassel has joined the $10 billion London-based currency and alternatives manager Millennium Global Investments as managing director of the funds of hedge funds business. Hassel was previously CIO of funds of hedge funds at Coronation Fund Managers, before which he was head of hedge fund strategies at GSAM in London.

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

Mexican fixed-line operator Maxcom almost defaulted on its debt a few years ago. But in December the company successfully returned to the international capital markets, proving that the appetite for Latin American high-yield credits is as strong as ever. Chloe Hayward speaks to CFO José-Antonio Solbes about the company’s turnaround.

The UK has been eagerly awaiting the introduction of tax-free real estate investment trusts for years, so when the legislation permitting them finally took effect at the start of 2007 nine of the UK’s largest property companies were ready to make the switch.

Citing evidence from what he admits is a limited study, TABB Group partner Robert Iati feels that the decision of many of the leading FX banks to invest heavily in their own trading portals has left the multi-bank aggregating platforms looking vulnerable.

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

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.

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

A smash in the US, but tax advantages are not available for Europe.

Which are the financings that defined the capital markets in 2006? This year, Euromoney recognizes half a dozen deals that will for ever be associated with the previous 12 months.