Reaz Islam, head of Citi’s Falcon Strategies hedge funds, is leaving the bank.

The region’s importance could mean more banking officials relocating there.

Having been hit by a series of defections in recent months, Deutsche Bank has acquired a new head for its Russian business.

Following the retirement of John Fleming at Credit Suisse and ABN Amro’s Paul White, another longstanding debt syndicate head has left his role. Lorenzo Frontini, who ran European debt syndicate at Lehman Brothers for four years has moved to origination within the bank’s global finance division. Frontini is a Lehman veteran with 11 years experience, and now will run coverage for Italian financial institutions. He reports to European co-heads of global finance Philippe Dufournier and Richard Atterbury and geographically to Riccardo Banchettti, CEO of Italy.

Martin Egan is the new global head of debt capital markets at BNP Paribas. Egan maintains his role as head of primary markets where he oversees fixed income syndicate.

Why has idiosyncratic Idzik exited? In early May, it seeped out that Paul Idzik, Barclays’ chief operating officer, had decided to leave the UK bank. And for a while, all anyone wanted to discuss was the Idzik exodus.

Series of opportunistic buybacks is ruffling feathers in the loan market.

When a medical doctor with close ties to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was appointed as minister of finance many were surprised. Surapong Suebwonglee has worked hard to woo Thai people and foreign investors with tax cuts, capital markets reforms and a focus on growth. Lawrence White met him on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank meeting.

The recent burst of issuance in Spain appears to have run its course, but the news is better in Portugal.

New president Ma Ying-jeou is intent on improving relations with the People’s Republic of China, with likely benefits for business, especially in financial services. Chris Wright reports.

Despite conflicting views on the state of the economy and uncertainty caused by political unrest, banks are riding high on mortgage lending and consumer loans. There is still huge untapped potential for credit cards. High interest rates remain the fly in the ointment, however. Julian Marshall reports.

When BlackRock announced in May that it would be buying $15 billion of UBS’s sub-prime mortgages, for some market participants it signalled the bottom of the mortgage-backed securities market. But house prices are still falling. Is US real estate still too risky? Helen Avery goes doorstepping.

After a year that has been ruthless in its revelation of sub-par debt services, the Euromoney debt poll reveals which banks have managed to survive the credit crunch with their reputations, and their client bases, still intact.

The commodity price boom masks fundamental questions about the value of commodity investments in a portfolio, the choice of commodities and the most constructive use of indices. Euromoney’s debate panel grapples with the crucial issues.

If you don’t know what to buy friends who invested in Bear Stearns to cheer them up, look no further than eBay. For just $17.99 the bidding website is offering a T-shirt with the slogan: "I invested my life savings with Bear Stearns and all I have left is this lousy t-shirt." The item had received no bids by time we went to press but other interesting Bear Stearns memorabilia was faring better. Among the 24 Bear Stearns-related items up for grabs on the website is a Bear Stearns hard hat, a Bear Stearns aviator Teddy Bear, and a sealed deck of cards issued to Bear Stearns employees to mark the 50th anniversary of Ace Greenberg’s joining the firm.

Euromoney: What was the reasoning behind the latest reorganization?

"There are no second acts in American lives," wrote F Scott Fitzgerald towards the end of his own monochrome career. He can’t have been talking about Wall Street: as anyone who has tracked the career of John Meriwether will know, third, fourth and fifth acts are perfectly possible. Perhaps more careers have taken a dramatic turn in the present crisis than was the case when the hedge fund LTCM failed; for those seeking an uplifting plot twist, a stage name might come in handy. Euromoney has noticed that merely shuffling the letters in the names of some victims of the credit crisis produces plausible pseudonyms, and respectfully presents the stars of tomorrow: Enterprising readers might wish to suggest their own anagrams: Euromoney confesses to being stumped by Jonathan Chenevix-Trench, former COO of Morgan Stanley’s institutional securities business.

Most US hedge fund managers are pessimistic about the US economy this year, according to a survey by Kinetic Partners.

"I don’t think it’s a Great Depression, I don’t think it’s Armageddon but I think that it’s purely wishful thinking for people to be forecasting a sharp V-shaped recovery in the second half of the year"

It seems that life at the UK Treasury is far more relaxing since the credit crunch hit last summer. According to figures released by the Treasury, staff took in total an average of 166 days off a month because of stress-related illnesses in the first half of 2007, while in the second half of the year the figure was 106 days.

The usually laborious task of bringing a new exchange traded fund product to market in the US looks set to become a thing of the past once new SEC rules come into play.

A commodity boom masks fundamental problems in the Brazilian economy, observers argue.

A rights issue boom means investment banks have bizarrely profited from their failures.

Kuwait Projects Company (Kipco) has decided to reorganize its financial services holdings.

After the bleakest of winters, springtime in the debt capital markets was an especially joyous affair. In April and May there were record new-issue volumes in the US and a revival of the European market. That is good news for large financial institutions and the big underwriters.

Revelations on Moody’s mis-rating of CPDOs could be the most damaging yet.

Venezuela has negotiated a new loan agreement with several Japanese companies. The money is earmarked for the expansion of two oil refineries and the loans will be repaid in future oil production. This is not the first time Venezuela has relied on oil repayment – China is owed $4 billion in oil for a loan and PDVSA owes Japanese companies Mitsui & Co and Marubeni $3.5 billion in oil. Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister of Venezuela, said the money would be used to expand the El Palito and Puerto la Cruz refineries and increase their capacity to process heavy crude. Ramírez said: "Japanese companies are moving very aggressively, they want a position in Venezuela." He did not say which Japanese companies are involved in the deal but Japan is looking for ways to reduce its dependence on Middle East production. In 2007, Japanese refiners brought Venezuelan crude for the first time since the 1980s.

Brazil plans a sovereign wealth fund.

Inflation in South Africa continues to shock after reaching 10.4% on a year-on-year basis in April. The rate confounded expectations, including that of Tito Mboweni, the central bank governor, who told Euromoney, two weeks before the announcement of the April figure, that he believed it had peaked at the end of the first quarter.

Who’d be a DCM head in 2007 or 2008? These bankers would. Alex Chambers finds out what the head officials at leading banks think are the key lessons the market has learnt and what the future holds for debt capital markets.

Growing concerns about another default need to be assuaged quickly by the government.

In the face of global market turbulence, rising oil prices and rifts in the country’s rickety ruling coalition, Pakistan’s markets remain a rare sanctuary of stability for embattled investors and acquisitive foreign corporates.

It was all going so well. In the past three years the Philippines has been the poster child of emerging markets fiscal policy, turning a crippling deficit into an almost balanced budget. But having done all the hard work, its achievements might all be derailed, thanks to the soaring oil price and rising food prices.

Equity issuance volumes, especially IPOs out of Brazil, will pick up in the second half of the year, according to senior bankers in Latin America, after the credit crunch put a halt to the region’s four-year boom.

The market has discovered that it’s not just about platform technology.

Hope to improve prices and minimize fees and impact on market.

Korea’s new government, led by president Lee Myung-bak, is committed to free market economics and business-friendly policies, according to the country’s top economic policymaker.

"Go West", sang the Village People when encouraging listeners to seek utopia but bankers considering their career prospects might now be advised to go in the opposite direction. In what might be a sign of things to come, Credit Suisse has relocated two senior bankers to Asia, seeking to align top talent with areas of highest potential growth. First up is Vikram Gandhi, who has led CS to its position as the top M&A adviser to financial institutions (year-to-date) since he joined the firm in 2005. Gandhi, who moves from New York to Hong Kong, will continue in his role as head of the global financial institutions group. Before he joined Credit Suisse, Gandhi was head of FIG at Morgan Stanley.

Oi Participações, the Brazilian telecoms group formerly known as Telemar, is to buy local telecoms rival Brasil Telecom for R$5.86 billion ($3.5 billion). The merger will create the leading telecoms operator in Brazil, with 70% of Brazil’s fixed-line market. The deal awaits changes in the regulatory framework, which does not allow a single group to hold two separate telecoms concessions. Rothschild, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse advised Telemar. Brasil Telecom did not employ any investment banks.

Never mind volatility in the financial markets. Latin America’s investment banking community has rarely seen so many senior people moving around as in the past few months – with the likelihood of more changes to come. Many of the leading international banks are shaking up their businesses either through big hires or internal moves to better target the region’s opportunities.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But according to analysis by Riskdata, investors would have been able to predict funds that would lose money back in June last year had they used the right models.

The London Stock Exchange is launching a service to provide research coverage for the small-cap stocks listed on its main market and on junior market AIM.

The European Commission’s threat to restrict emission credits could fatally hurt the growing carbon market. Peter Koh reports.

Japan’s top companies are increasing dividend payments to shareholders and buying back stock in record amounts, according to new research from Nikko Asset Management.

20,000,000,000 - 8 - 8.7

Fortress’s first-quarter earnings sparked some concern among market participants but chief executive and chairman Wesley Edens says the worst is now over.

While some continue to debate whether the knife is still falling, others have decided that the distressed credit markets already offer an attractive investment opportunity.

CLS has added the Israeli shekel and Mexican peso to the 15 currencies it settles. "Bringing the benefits of CLS settlement to an ever wider community of stakeholders is central to our strategy of growing the value of CLS to the market. The local banking systems in Israel and Mexico will also experience the risk and efficiency benefits that CLS participation will bring, and we are very pleased to welcome these two new currencies to the CLS community," says Rob Close, chief executive of CLS Group.

CLS adds shekel and Mexican peso...

Nasdaq OMX has chosen the European Multilateral Clearing Facility, run by Fortis, to be the clearer for the pan-European MTF that it plans to launch in September. Nasdaq OMX’s choice is a boost for EMCF, which also handles the clearing of rival pan-European MTF, Chi-X.

NYSE-Euronext is capitalizing on regulatory convergence to show issuers some of the benefits that it had hoped its transatlantic merger might be capable of.

The Middle East and north Africa will be the top-performing regions in 2008, according to a survey of 1,000 investors by Deutsche Bank.

Focus Capital, a specialist emerging markets absolute return manager, has launched a fund of funds that invests across multiple asset classes.

Capital International Private Equity Fund V (CIPEF V) has closed with funds totalling $2.25 billion.

High-ticket foreign purchases by Tata Steel and Hindalco have grabbed the headlines but India’s SMEs are also increasingly acquisitive. Cash-rich, or funded by enthusiastic local banks or foreign investors, they are taking advantage of turmoil in the US. Elliot Wilson reports.

Much of the focus on the credit crunch has been on the biggest financial intermediaries, but fixed-income investors were also shaken. Alex Chambers finds out what the biggest players think are their opportunities and challenges.

The credit crunch has brought the benefits of a strong, experienced debt house into stark perspective, and there has been a realization that not all investment banks and their services are equal. Jethro Wookey reports.

Companies must guard their cash more zealously than ever before and deploy it more efficiently as economies slow. Banks with the right products to help them will prosper. Those don’t include high-yielding cash funds. Peter Lee reports.

Anyone with a brief to outline the benefits of mezzanine lending over the hedge fund and CLO money that recently replaced it could do worse than sit back and wait for the first wave of recent LBO deals to go wrong.

Asian investment banking thrives despite woes in Europe and the US.

Blackstone Group has hired Kemal Kaya as a senior adviser for its Turkish operations.

Falling corporate cash levels show the credit crunch is starting to bite.

HBOS deserves the gratitude of its rivals for its attempt at a UK RMBS benchmark, but it may prove futile in the short term.

Slovakia’s now near-certain entry into the eurozone in January 2009 should help bolster the country’s credit ratings and improve investor sentiment towards the country, say bankers.

Bankers say there will be further equity capital markets issuance from farming groups in Ukraine in the coming months.

It doesn’t take much to bring out the eccentricity of the English. And a ban on drinking alcohol on London’s underground system achieved just that, as thousands of revellers gathered on trains and at tube stations in late May to mark the last day that it was legal to have a tipple 50 feet under London’s streets.

Star performers are not motivated solely by the chance to earn yet more, as the pending departure of Greg Coffey from GLG to start his own business shows. Neil Wilson reports.

The Angolan government wants foreign companies to divest part of their stakes in their subsidiaries to the country’s wealthiest companies as part of its strategy to localize key assets.

One of the many things that got forgotten during the LBO boom was that mezzanine is a risky product.

Standard Chartered and the International Finance Corporation have joined forces to launch the first-ever issuance of credit-linked notes backed by loans to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

US listed asset management firm BlackRock has embarked on a renewed drive into Latin America.

Financial institutions’ woes are not at an end. Non-deposit institutions still have losses to book and the whole credit creation model is broken. So a quick and easy upturn from the credit crisis is not to be expected.

Deutsche Securities Inc has announced Shunichi Maeda, previously deputy president at Lehman Brothers Japan, as its new vice-chairman of global banking for Japan. Maeda, a former Mitsubishi investment banking veteran who has also worked at the World Bank, has been brought on board primarily for his extensive contact network as well as his experience in banking.

These are happy days for mezzanine lenders. Having been excluded from the LBO boom of recent years they are now the first port of call for sponsors in the brave new world of leveraged finance. But how long will the mini-boom last? Louise Bowman reports.

Many voices have called an end to structured credit. And yet, amid the continued retrenchment and fallout from several years of excessive activity, there are signs that this structuring technique is far from dead: its proponents are merely reshaping the technology. Alex Chambers reports.

Permanent deal is the most exciting thing for a very long time.

Initial public offerings were just gaining momentum when turmoil stopped the market in its tracks. Jethro Wookey asks if the largest IPO in western Europe this year can get the wheels moving again?

It is not that long ago that Barclays Capital dismissed the possibility that it would cater directly for retail foreign exchange business.

The billionaire investor is one of the world’s most successful buyers of distressed assets. He talks to Sudip Roy in New York about value destruction, a Middle East partnership and his strategy for the future.

UK-based fund Brevan Howard has raised $1 billion in an IPO of its feeder fund, BH Global, double its original target. The fund will invest in five of Brevan Howard’s hedge funds. Canadian firm Sprott Asset Management also went public last month, with a $225 million IPO. It was the biggest IPO in Canada in the past five months.

Malayan Bank, Malaysia’s biggest lender, has acquired 15% of Pakistan’s MCB Bank, Pakistan’s fourth-largest bank by asset value. This is the Malaysian bank’s third acquisition in Asia in two months and the largest banking acquisition in Pakistan.

Mining company’s CEO hopes credit crunch won’t dent IPO and funding for expansion projects.

Star money manager Bill Miller has framed the questions that the mainstream asset management industry must answer. Hedge funds will be rubbing their hands with glee.

Rasmala was created by one man: Ali Al Shihabi. The firm and its founder encapsulate the cultural fusion for which their home, Dubai, is famed. Dominic O’Neill profiles a company that specializes in the world’s fastest-growing financial market.

Best Borrowers 2008: Bank of America