Investors welcome a market-friendly deal achieved with the minimum of fuss

Stock markets are unimpressed by president's pro-business reforms

Between sessions on liquidity, capital issues and the future of credit markets, the big issues of a conference near Malaga in Spain were played out around the poker table

Singapore: REITS get more sophisticated A series of recent transactions from Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in Singapore, the de facto non-Japan Asia centre for the specialist property investment vehicles, are proving not only the popularity of the asset class with investors but also their flexibility as funding vehicles for real estate assets.

Global private equity firms increasingly have Asia in their sights. CVC Capital Partners (CVC) a privately owned investment and advisory company, has closed its $1.975 billion Asia Pacific Fund, CVC's second Asia fund and a joint venture with former parent Citigroup.

Despite concerns, long-only funds are trying to flatter their returns

The New York Stock Exchange's historic deal with electronic rival Archipelago and Nasdaq's acquisition of rival I-Net dramatically reshape US cash equities trading. But what do they mean for OTC and listed trading, regional exchanges, and users now that the SEC's controversial Reg NMS has been passed? Peter Koh reports.

With Greece continuing to run budget deficits that are unpalatable to credit rating agencies and breach EU guidelines, the government must look beyond tax increases to deal with the problem. Dimitris Kontogiannis reports.

Deutsche and Wharton announce Delta

Regulator makes new attempt to solve 'legal person' shares overhang

Algeria: bank reform picks up pace

Real estate investment trusts have helped to drive development of the asset class in countries such as the US and Japan. Now a European-wide market is ready for take off. Helen Avery reports.

It's not just General Electric which is getting all puffed up about green technology through its Egoimagination drive.

Regulation:

New launch is sign of growing sophistication in fixed income investing

Iran's strong headline economic figures are out of kilter with the weakness of its private sector and feeble foreign direct investment flows. Can the authorities boost private sector growth and investment inflows so long as influential ruling groups remain suspicious of free enterprise?

The chairman of the SEC throws his weight behind Sarbanes-Oxley

Management of emerging markets lender Standard Chartered Bank is putting its own advertising slogan, 'We go the distance so you go further', to good internal use in its efforts to integrate its largest acquisition, the US$3.4 billion deal with Korea First Bank (KFB).

Some banks are already seeing an uptake from new buy-side clients

Mizuho has announced plans to establish a private banking company in Japan. The 70-person unit, Mizuho Private Wealth Management Company, will provide consulting services and various personalised financial products for clients with 500 million yen or more in assets. It will be a tough market to crack, however. A private banking market in Japan has never fully taken off despite attempts by both foreign and domestic players. Wealthy Japanese have tended to keep their money on deposit, while the banks have not focused on customer service. Even at a retail banking level, only now is there evidence of a service-oriented banking culture, led by Shinsei and Tokyo Star.

Other banks' proprietary platforms need to pick up market share fast

It is not just American businessmen and tourists filling the seats of Thai Airways' new non-stop route between Bangkok and New York.

Investor sentiment has soured dramatically over the past two months, with more fund managers now expecting growth to slacken and corporate profits to fall. A Merrill Lynch survey of 300 fund managers indicates that a net 32% are now negative about growth prospects and that a net 34% are negative about the corporate profit outlook, a significant turnround from March when investors were positive about growth and corporate profits by a net 11% and 4% respectively. Expectations have not been this low since 2001.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association held a gala dinner in London in May to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

ECM syndicate merry-go-round BNP Paribas has hired Florence Sztuder from SG to replace Tom Kennedy, who left the bank in April, as head of equity syndicate.

Leveraged buyouts and auto company problems are taxing the minds of bond investors, but there's a more insidious form of event risk they should be wary of. Company executives, under pressure from boards and active investors including hedge funds, are starting to engage in financial engineering to try to boost their stock price. Bondholders are set to lose out. Antony Currie reports.

Raiffeisenbank International's CEO, Herbert Stepic, says he intends to use the profits from Raiffeisen's successful IPO on April 21 to bid for Aval Bank, the second-biggest bank in Ukraine. He says: "We are in good negotiations with the owners [private Ukrainian investors] and we hope to come to terms by the start of June." The deal would be one of RZB's largest acquisitions in eastern Europe. Aval Bank has the largest retail banking business in Ukraine, with total assets of €1.5 billion.

Investors snapped up the bonds on rarity value, as Germany went for an early deal

Negative returns

The Chinese government is at it again. Having already spent at least $45 billion in what may well prove to be vainglorious attempts to fix the country's ailing state-owned banking system, the People's Bank of China (PBC) announced that the State Council has decided to part with another $15 billion of foreign exchange reserves to shore up the capital base of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, by assets, the nation's largest bank.