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.

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

Gulf institutions maintain their dominance of Euromoney’s rankings as growth continues for third successive year. Morris Helal reports.

“Whereas western European banks are afraid to go to the Balkans because they’re not used to the environment of corruption, black money and illegal activities, we are used to this here in Greece”

A European transaction-cost-analysis survey conducted by business school Edhec and commissioned by HSBC came up with figures in January that show just how unprepared many fund managers are to meet the requirements of the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) and the best execution requirements of their clients.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

“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!”

“I think we need to improve even more on the customer front. Customers are listening to what you say in terms of capital structure, liability management as a whole and then you can focus on one specific topic, one particular product. But you need to have people fully aligned”

The unbundling of research is gathering pace again, this time driven by ­customer demand. Clients with more discerning appetites would prefer to order individual bits and pieces from a menu where the prices are clearly ­written. However, both investment banks and smaller clients are addicted to the buffet approach. Peter Koh reports.

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.

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.

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.

Numerical proof of how tough the foreign exchange market was for many participants through the summer of 2006 has been provided by semi-annual volume data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Foreign Exchange Committee and the Bank of England’s FX Joint Standing Committee. According to the FXC, average daily volume in over-the-counter FX instruments in October 2006 totalled $534 billion, 7.5% down on April 2006.

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

OMX bids for Slovenian stock exchange.

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.

"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.

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.

Liability management can be a double-edged sword. Get it right and everyone showers you with plaudits about your relative sophistication as a borrower and how attentive you are to addressing investors’ wants and needs. Get it wrong, however, and your name is quickly mud and the world and his fund manager wife are soon griping about how naive you are and how difficult it will be for you to achieve your funding target for the year if you carry on in a such a cavalier, market-unfriendly manner.

Deutsche Bank’s European securitization research notes the market’s impressive growth rate in Russia in 2006.

Nothing is more likely to cause instability than a long period of stability. And excessive growth of credit and liquidity is a clear warning sign of crashes to come, probably within the next year.

Recent research belies the image of hedge fund activists as short-termists that destroy corporate value rather than create it.

Dutch pension funds ABP and PGGM both recently reported their quarterly results. Cover ratios at both are rising nicely but ABP’s new strategic portfolio catches the eye. Mark Ramsden asks if it points to less demand for long-dated bonds and more for inflation-linked assets.

Only strong M&A-related capital-raising will allow hybrid debt volumes to remain firm in 2007.

This tongue-in-cheek reaction of one banker on hearing that Société Générale is the latest bank to create a fixed-income, currencies and commodities (FICC) division is understandable.

“Global credit spreads are tight and will likely stay tight as long as our forecast for a global soft landing proves true and global liquidity doesn’t suddenly evaporate.”

Banks’ predictions for 2007 are remarkably similar to those of a year ago.

Benchmark multi-family CMBS deal refinanced after just over a year.

Much of the singsong about the advantages to Euronext of the merger with the NYSE sounds flat.

The region’s equity markets are beginning to outshine debt and M&A.

A revival of domestic investor interest in Japan’s equity and real estate markets is inevitable.

Babson Capital has launched a credit opportunity fund designed to exploit sales of stressed and distressed leveraged loans that have been forced by CLO triggers.

Data on the US housing market spells bad news for ABS CDOs this year.

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

Richard Downer, who left Bear Stearns last June having been responsible for its troubled Rooftop Mortgages subsidiary, has joined Bank of America in London. The hire of Downer, together with former Bear colleague Neil Warman, would suggest that BoA might be the latest bank planning a move into the non-conforming mortgage space. Bear Stearns opted to bring in US talent to run the London-based residential mortgage business, which is now headed by Fred Khedouri. In another London-based move, Colin Evans has transferred to the specialty finance group at JPMorgan with a remit to boost consumer finance and non-bank financial business. He was previously head of FIG securitized products at the bank.

Currenex’s sale may force a re-rating of FX platforms and their owners.

Regulatory arbitrage will to take a new form once bankers can get their heads around Basle II.

The imposition of policies to counter terrorist financing activities means that controversial decisions are inevitable. Even so, the US Treasury’s hard-line stance towards Iran’s financial institutions, two of which it publicly claims are funding the country’s nuclear weapons programme and Middle East terrorist organizations, raises important questions – not least whether its actions are interfering with international commerce.

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.

Euromoney’s FX correspondent’s body took days to recover from the huge amount of cholesterol he consumed at a lunch in January with Saxo Bank’s Rob Gray (pictured), who chose to go to Simpsons Tavern in Cornhill after winning the online Christmas quiz of Euromoney’s foreign exchange column, The Weekly FiX. Simpsons is a British institution, where if you asked for the vegetarian option, the poor old waitress would have a heart attack. You can’t book a table and you have to sit on benches, taking pot luck on who will be chomping away next to you. In the old days, it was a great place for getting the odd nudge and a wink and picking up some decent stock tips. Insider trading rules and a reluctance to go to lunch, plus the wholesale move of banks from the City to the horror known as Canary Wharf, have put paid to that.

Babson-managed CDPC takes industry to the mainstream of structured credit.

UK retailer Marks & Spencer is to partly plug the £704 million ($1.4 billion) hole in its UK defined benefit pension scheme by redeeming its 2001 Amethyst Finance sale and leaseback CMBS deal. The properties backing the CMBS have a current estimated book value of £550 million. UK supermarket group J Sainsbury exploited the value of its property portfolio in early 2006 by securitizing half of its property portfolio and injecting the proceeds into its pension fund. M&S plans to put its properties into a partnership in which the pension scheme will hold the interest. The cost of unwinding Amethyst and setting up the new partnership will be £30 million to £35 million.

Japan seems a strange place to start an independent research firm. Costs are high, and the market, although large, is dominated by domestic mega banks and the international bulge bracket. For Rupert Eastwood, CEO and co-founder of Japaninvest Group, that is precisely the point.

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

Two surveys of hedge fund managers’ portfolio valuation policies have revealed a lack of standardization, highlighting a need for stricter valuation procedures, particularly when dealing with hard-to-value assets.

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.

Institutional investors adopt the 130/30 rule.

The “marriage made in heaven” (as it has been described in the financial press) between yield-hungry Asian investors and perpetual bond-issuing Latin American companies turned hellish in May 2006.

With emerging markets as an asset class hotter than ever, it might be expected that capital flows to them would also be hitting all-time highs. Latin America, however, seems to have been left out of the party somewhat.

Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Ecuador’s long-term foreign currency ratings to CCC from CCC+. S&P also changed the credit rating outlook to stable from positive. The moves follow repeated statements by Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, that the government would fail to make an interest payment on its debt due this month. Last month economy minister Ricardo Patino told investors that the government was considering repaying only 40% of its foreign debt. He added that he expected a debt-restructuring plan to emerge soon. Correa’s government, which came into power in January, believes much of Ecuador’s $11 billion-worth of foreign debt is illegitimate because it was borrowed by military dictatorships that ran the country in the past.