Which US investment bank is back in the top 10? Which Danish bank breaks into the top 25 for the first time? What’s the best multi-bank platform – FXall or Currenex? And who are the leading local banks in emerging market FX? Here are the views of over 8,000 end-users who transacted over $120 trillion in the past 12 months.

The Russian investment story is moving outside Moscow and St Petersburg. A wave of foreign investors, led by the EBRD, is heading out into the Russian regions, looking for the next frontier of investment bargains.

Euromoney has incorporated its annual credit research poll into a new fixed income research survey. The intention has been to give those banks that no longer follow the traditional fundamental sell-side credit research model a chance to be nominated by their clients.

After years of stellar performance can Russia’s hedge fund managers continue to produce such strong returns for their investors? Guy Norton reports from Moscow.

Fast-growing Russian Agricultural Bank plays a key role in promoting economic development in the Russian countryside. Guy Norton talks to Yuri Trushin, the bank’s chairman, about the challenges it faces.

General Atlantic, a global private equity firm, has taken a stake in the Global Electronic Trading Company. Bill Ford, GA’s chief executive, and Rene Kern, its managing director, will join Getco’s board. GA has been steadily investing in the financial services sector. It has taken stakes in what it describes as innovative, technology-driven companies, including Saxo Bank.

Low volatility in the FX market should not necessarily mean low returns.

In 20 years, RZB has gone from being an Austrian also-ran to a central and eastern European market leader. Much of its success is attributable to the vision of Raiffeisen International’s CEO, Herbert Stepic. No wonder he is known to the Austrian masses as ‘Der Cash-Man’. Guy Norton looks at RZB’s ambitious plans for further expansion in the region, and Sudip Roy finds out what keeps the fire burning in Stepic’s belly.

Oman’s landmark Blue City project has been dragged into a legal dispute after one of the project’s financial advisers was sued last month.

Is Poland the new Russia? Not in economic superpower terms, but in riding roughshod over the wishes of foreign investors?

Latest securitization refinancing of GHG healthcare group is a puzzlingly complex hybrid deal that will be largely retained by arranger Barcap.

The present run of stock market buoyancy cannot be sustained. And that’s not just because credit is set to contract – so, too, are corporate profits.

"Help me.... I’m cold... I don’t know where I am... there are bugs crawling all over me..."

A series of CMBS deals have triggered or are threatening to trigger their available funds caps.

Société Générale has acquired a 100% stake in Banco Cacique, a Brazilian retail firm specializing in consumer credit with 1,800 employees and about 600,000 active clients. A spokeswoman for SG told Euromoney that the move was not indicative of any plan to rush into Brazil but is rather the targeting of a specific market where strong growth is expected.

International banks continue to flock to Turkey, where the lure of a 70 million-plus population that is becoming increasingly bankable presents an almost irresistible attraction. Among the latest entrants to the Turkish banking market is Bank TuranAlem, Kazakhstan’s number two bank by assets. After nine months of negotiations it has secured a 33.98% stake in Sekerbank for TL424.7 million ($256 million). The acquisition was conducted by BTA’s investment banking arm, TuranAlem Securities, whose chief executive, Kairat Bektanov, says that the Sekerbank transaction is part of an expansion strategy that has transformed BTA from a purely Kazakh operation into a major regional player. The bank already has subsidiaries in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine as well as representative offices in China, Tajikistan and the United Arab Emirates.

With Hoteloc still ringing in the market’s ears, Deutsche Bank’s conduit trips up on its pub valuations.

Buying into the IPO of a private equity company is like a game of pass the parcel in which someone has already made off with the prize. Those that choose to play will end up disappointed.

Icap has widened the distribution of its electronic forward foreign exchange platform after what it says is its successful take-up in Europe. The company says the platform will build on the success of EBS, the spot platform it bought from its mainly bank owners in 2006.

In the second half of last year, outstanding volumes of credit default swaps grew by 33%. This compares with the first half of the year, when outstanding CDS volumes grew by 52%. In 2005, CDS volumes rose by 105%. The numbers were produced by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which announced on April 18 the results of its year-end 2006 market survey of privately negotiated derivatives.

Belgian bancassurance player KBC has become the latest foreign bank to buy into Russia. Late in April it agreed to pay up to €761 million to acquire at least 92.5% of Absolut Bank, 3.8 times the book value. It is the biggest banking M&A deal in Russia. Absolut Bank is one of the fastest-growing banks in Russia and has doubled its loan book on an annual basis for the past five years. "Over the past decade, KBC has built up a strong presence in many of the countries that joined the EU in May 2004 and January 2007. KBC’s long-term strategic plans entail further expansion in the markets of emerging Europe. Russia is therefore an extension of our existing presence in neighbouring central and eastern Europe," says André Bergen, KBC Group chief executive.

Taking advantage of its recently gained status as a recognized overseas clearing house, Eurex, the derivatives exchange owned by Deutsche Börse and SWX (Swiss Exchange), announced plans to begin offering sterling-denominated single-stock futures on UK-listed shares in May.

The Argentine government has advised Ecuador not to follow its example and default on its debt.

Following the departure of Sebastian Chatel to Credit Suisse, UBS has named Evandro Pereira as its new head of Latin American equity capital markets. Managing director Pereira previously ran capital markets in Brazil at UBS Pactual. He will now report to Tom Fox and Matthew Koder, co-heads of global ECM.

Czech power provider CEZ has been voted central and Eastern Europe’s best-managed company for the second year running. Rising energy prices are helping the firm to record strong profits, but why are analysts so impressed by the firm’s management? Lawrence White reports.

Securitization used to be a dirty word in Brazil, with many investors intimidated by the risks of such a complex product and suspicious of promised double-digit returns in the local real currency. But since the creation of the fundos de investimento em direitos creditorios (credit receivables funds), FIDCs have become the vehicle of choice for non real-estate securitizations in Brazil, and foreign investors are flocking en masse to the market.

The International Securities Exchange, which pioneered electronic equity option trading in the US, has listed contracts on four currency pairs: US dollar/euro, US dollar/sterling, US dollar/yen and US dollar/Canadian dollar. Timber Hill will serve as the primary market maker, and Citigroup Derivatives Markets, Lehman Brothers and Optiver US will act as competitive market makers. The contracts are very much aimed at the US retail sector.

European credit strategist Gary Jenkins has joined Synapse Investment Management as a partner and portfolio manager in the credit strategy team. Gary was previously a managing director and head of fundamental credit strategy at Deutsche Bank, and before that was a managing director and head of credit research at Barclays Capital.

FXMarketSpace, the 50/50 joint venture owned by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Reuters, officially went live as planned at the end of the first quarter.

The usual post-bonus round of recruitment has generated a typical flurry of activity in Asia’s investment banking community. The one area that has been notably active is the debt capital markets business as banks reposition their businesses to reflect the exceptionally strong market conditions of 2006 and the start of this year.