Barings, Castlepoint, AIG, Eclectica, to name but a few, have all set up agriculture funds in the past 12 months to cash in on expected commodity price increases. And if returns to date are anything to go by, more will be joining them.

Ceiba Investments, a closed-end fund that invests solely in Cuban assets, is set to list its shares on London junior market AIM this month.

According to a survey by Tabb Group, one in four US hedge funds is planning to open a new office outside the US in the next two years. At least 400 offices will open in the next 12 months and, depending on market conditions, a further 400 in the next two years, says the report. The majority of funds opening abroad are multi-strategy. These need to move to markets in which investment opportunities arise.

Barclays Capital has hired Rudy Alexis from Bank of America, where he was head of FX sales Europe. Sources say he will join the bank as a managing director to run its Iberian, Italian and new markets corporate FX sales team and report to Jim O’Neill, Barclays’ co-head of UK and European corporate foreign exchange and corporate risk advisory.

'The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable' is an excellent read, but anyone who talks about the credit crunch in these terms is not being intellectually honest.

Every cloud has a silver lining. With the international debt markets only now open to a select few Russian corporates, and with many Russian banks strapped for cash, there are plenty off opportunities for asset managers to lend to strong corporate credits at distressed debt-type margins.

NYSE plans rule changes to improve the competitiveness of its trading floor.

"We’ve certainly seen some clients actively seeking out firms that have avoided the worst of the problems. I should say ‘there, but for the grace of God’... but the truth is, we’ve so far avoided massive write-downs and that’s allowed us to focus on our clients and their needs, and not have to be very focused on ourselves"

China Merchants Bank will buy Hong Kong’s Wing Lung Bank, after beating bids from rivals including ICBC and Bank of Communications. CMB will pay HK$156.50 per share for a 53% stake in Wing Lung, valuing the bank at around $4.7 billion. Rumours of the sale have driven up Wing Lung’s share price: in a letter to shareholders on June 11, CMB’s board noted that the price paid per share represented "a premium of approximately 76.14% over the closing price of HK$88.85 per WLB Share as quoted on the Stock Exchange on 12 February 2008, being the last full trading day prior to recent news articles of the potential sale of the shares on 13 February 2008." It’s a high price to pay, and in the same letter the board of CMB announced that the bank would look to the debt markets to raise sufficient capital to finance the acquisition with an issuance of Rmb30 billion ($4.3 billion). CMB, China’s sixth-largest bank by assets, was advised by JPMorgan in the three-month bidding process. Wing Lung was advised by UBS and Credit Suisse.

The strong run in emerging market equities and the relative outperformance of non-US developed market stocks appears to have ended as a weak US housing market weighs down on consumers and credit markets and high commodity prices stoke inflation worldwide.

Euromoney’s awards for excellence recognize the banks that have best performed under difficult conditions over the past year. But what of the CEOs? Profile is everything but how can one really judge the most influential chiefs of the world’s biggest banks?

Icap has confirmed the launch of its web-based version of EBS.

The obsession about Goldman Sachs in the financial world – not least among its competitors – is nothing new.

In Europe and Asia, UBS is the closest challenger to the top two prime brokerage players but Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse are arguably now the best placed to grow. Neil Wilson reports.

FSA forces disclosure of significant short positions in companies undertaking rights issues while issuers look for a quicker route to market.

It’s a truism that hindsight is 20/20 vision. But those who spot the signals of turning markets are visionaries and those who act on these signals are true geniuses.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission has given Credit Suisse the go-ahead to launch a joint venture with local firm Founder Securities. The Swiss bank takes a 33% share in the new entity, which will be able to sponsor and underwrite A shares, foreign investment shares and government and corporate bonds. The firm will not be able to offer secondary market services such as research and broking, however: under new regulations announced in 2007 Sino-foreign joint ventures must show a track record of five years’ unblemished service before being able to expand their activities.

The belief that Libor is an actual rate at which banks lend substantial money to one another is a façade that the credit crunch has torn down with a vengeance.

The biggest retailers will regret having been blind to opportunities in emerging Europe.

Changes in domestic market conditions are making borrowing abroad the most attractive option for Chilean banks and corporates.

Appetite for distressed ABS is not nearly sufficient to mop up supply.

We could be living through the last days of the independent investment banks.

The departure of Andre Esteves from UBS need not be a big setback for the Swiss bank’s fortunes in Brazil.

Tight spreads and a lack of differentiation between issuers are things of the past in the covered bond markets. But perhaps this is more “normal” than the bull market situation.

Institutional investment in commodity markets is boon not bane.

"You should come to Beirut soon. The situation has improved a lot," Adnan Kassar, chairman of Lebanon’s Fransabank, advises Euromoney.

Merrill Lynch has launched an investable index that the bank’s researchers say gives investors cleaner and more efficient access to US equity market volatility than products linked to the present benchmark, the Chicago Board Option Exchange’s Vix (Volatility Index). The Merrill Lynch US Forward Equity Variance Rolling (FEVR) index is designed to measure the performance of a long S&P 500 volatility strategy and follows the launch last year of a similar index in Europe, based on the volatility of the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50.

The Euromoney Awards for excellence define banking excellence in global categories and across 110 individual countries. Over the years these awards have set the standards for banking and capital market excellence amongst the top ranking financial institutions around the world. Awards are based on outstanding performance, quality service, innovation and momentum.

Japan’s stock markets have struggled lately as foreign investors abandon the country in droves; the Tokyo Stock Exchange, meanwhile, suffers from the perception that listing on it is still too difficult for foreign companies and that it is prone to technological problems.