Hybrid capital in all forms is attractive to yield-hungry investors right now, offering sellers good terms even while the straight equity market is closed. But the leading issuers - financial institutions - are concerned about lack of regulatory and accounting clarity.

Primary debt capital markets picked up so significantly in May that some bankers felt able to forecast a bumper crop of issuance for the year. But with macro events so unpredictable they weren't betting their all on that outcome.

President of Mercer Oliver Wyman & Co

The Olympics will boost the Greek economy but it needs structural reform and debt reduction. Looming elections may delay both.

Source: www.breakingviews.com is Europe's leading financial commentary service

Karlheinz Muhr is full of colourful ways to describe his business. He is chairman and founding partner of Volaris Advisors, which dubs itself an equity-options strategy firm. Essentially what it offers is the ability, as Muhr puts it, "to harvest the volatility of stocks which you already own".

When Kevin Gould was head of European fixed income at TD Securities, he would look around for daily market-wide data on credit prices. None existed. So he and a few colleagues left the bank to set up a company to produce it.

IFL is a new player with a bold mission: to become a full-service investment bank not a purveyor of niche products.

The successful privatizations of banks taken under the wing of the state after the 1997-98 crisis and well-received bonds have boosted investor sentiment about Indonesia.

Three powerful and transforming currents swirling through wholesale financial services - banks' increased appetite for proprietary trading, the growth of hedge funds and the trend to outsourcing - flowed together at a compelling presentation by Deutsche Bank at Euromoney's annual forex forum at the London Hilton last month.

Yet another name from the UK's merchant-banking past bites the dust. UBS is to ditch the Warburg name from its investment bank as part of a rebranding that also heralds the demise of all other extraneous suffixes.

Euromoney's Chris Cockerill speaks to Suchart Jaovisidha, Thailand's new finance minister, about non-performing loans, competition from China, the impact of Sars on tourism earnings and the plan for a pan-Asian investment fund, the Asia Bond Fund

Deep underground in a secured bunker in western Pennsylvania, employees of a Carlyle Group portfolio company perform background checks on government and airlines employees, as well as on thousands of private-sector job applicants.

Bank Atlas - Top 200

Harald Orneberg, a former banker at Salomon Smith Barney and founder of Orn Capital, is one of the new breed of hedge fund entrepreneurs. He has built his business from multiple hedge funds with different strategies and is winning over fans.