The huge losses being reported by corporates from emerging markets around the world suggest that not all is as rosy in FX as might have been reported.

Pension system nationalization announced last month brings country ‘closer to the abyss’.

Excuse the cliché, but there is a silver lining in the cloud hanging over hedge funds. Many are destined to shut down. But that means more opportunity for those that survive, argues Neil Wilson.

Bank of America is due to close its acquisition of Merrill Lynch in March 2009 but it is still not clear what it plans to do with Merrill’s Latin American business.

The BBC has launched a new series in the UK that seems eerily well timed considering the current financial situation. Little Dorrit, which premiered on Sunday October 26, is the story of a family that has fallen into debt and lost its house thanks to the overly aggressive lending policies of banks on the brink of world recession.

Cash-strapped Pakistan is trying every trick in the book to stave off a humiliating default on its mountain of foreign borrowings and inject some life into its moribund share markets. Mirroring the financial crisis elsewhere, the State Bank of Pakistan on October 16 moved to inject liquidity into the country’s financial system, cutting the cash reserve ratio – the amount banks are required to hold in reserve – by two percentage points, to 6%, and promising a further one percentage point cut by November 15. SBP governor Shamshad Akhtar promised the country’s embattled bankers that the move would immediately inject up to Rs180 billion ($2.2 billion) into the banking system, with a further Rs90 billion in capital to be freed up "at a later date".

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group closed its $9 billion investment in Morgan Stanley on October 13, ending speculation that the deal might not go ahead. The terms of the deal were more favourable to the Japanese institution than had originally been agreed, reflecting Morgan Stanley’s troubles. Rather than spending $3 billion of the total on ordinary shares at $25.25 each and the rest on convertible preferred shares with a conversion price of $31.25, MUFG will get a total of $7.8 billion-worth of the convertible preferred shares converting at $25.25 and the remaining $1.2 billion in preferred shares. The new deal offers substantially more protection for MUFG on its investment since preferred shares offer a fixed yield and their holders rank above common equity owners.

Under pressure from investors to put money to work, private equity firms are reconsidering the structure of their investment strategies.

As the global financial crisis begins to take its toll in Latin America, several banks are starting to look towards private equity opportunities. "Investment banks are very creative at finding ways to charge fees," says Matt Cole, managing director at North Bay Equity Partners, a Latin America focused private equity house. "In 2006/07 the investment banks encouraged companies to list on the stock exchange. Now the banks are starting to pitch private equity deals rather than public equity deals." Antonio Neto, debt banker at HSBC, says: "It makes sense for the investment banks to consider private equity investments when the capital markets are so quiet."

Seesawing markets set a number of records over the four weeks between mid-September and mid-October, including:

IMF loan may not be enough to stave off banking and currency collapse.

China’s cabinet has approved a capital injection into ailing state lender Agricultural Bank of China, priming it for an initial public offering in late 2009 or 2010. In addition, $150 billion to $200 billion of failed loans will be sucked out of ABC, which was set up in 1979 to provide financing to China’s 800 million farmers, and stored in one or several of the country’s leading asset management companies. In a year full of record bail-outs, the capital injection will be provided by Central Huijin, a division of China Investment Corporation (CIC), Beijing’s sovereign wealth fund, ABC vice-president Pan Gongsheng told a press conference on October 22. Set up in 2005 to oversee the bail-out of other leading Chinese banks, Central Huijin will take a 50% stake in ABC, with the remainder to be held by the country’s finance ministry. The bank will also seek further capital – as well as much-needed management and risk-control expertise – from one or more foreign lenders, who will buy a strategic stake in the lender before its IPO.

Show me the bonus!

The credit crisis has crossed the Pacific and hit home in Asia and is now even being felt in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of oil-rich Malaysia.

Rage against the dying of the light

Corporates can see the potential of shared service centres for reasons including compliance and costs, increased back office efficiency and labour arbitrage. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Hedge funds are resorting to fee cuts in an attempt to discourage investors from redemptions. Ramius Capital, which has two funds totalling $11 billion in assets, reduced its incentive fee last month from 20% to 15% for current investors who agree to leave their money in its funds. Those investors would enjoy the lower fees until the end of 2010. Investors that add capital won’t pay an incentive fee on the additional funds until the beginning of 2010.

When structured products started turning into four-letter words, investors should have taken heed.

Amendments made to accounting rules by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in mid October could allow banks to write back billions in losses incurred in trading books.

In an attempt to boost liquidity to financial institutions the US Federal Reserve has unveiled a scheme to support money market investors. Money Market Investor Funding will buy $540 million of short-term (up to three months) bank paper from funds. The Fed has created 10 private sector SPVs that can buy paper issued by up to 10 financial institutions – with concentration limits of 15%. Funds that sell into this programme receive 90% of the purchase price in cash and the rest as ABCP – which is effectively a first loss tranche for the individual SPV.

Christian Wait, global head of sales at Lehman Brothers, has moved to Standard Chartered where he will head global markets. He reports to Lenny Feder, global head of financial markets. Wait, who was European head of DCM before he moved back to the US to head up structured credit sales in 2005, will be based in Singapore. Meanwhile, Ben Katz, a former senior FIG structuring banker at Lehman, will join Barclays Capital in London. He reports to Richard Boath, head of FIG. Lorenzo Frontini who spent 11 years at Lehman, mostly in syndicate, before moving in June to run Italian FIG DCM, has moved to a similar position at Deutsche Bank. He reports to Renato Grelle, who runs Italian DCM.

The substantial help afforded financial institutions across the globe has failed to support spreads outside the financial sector. Corporate credit was responsible for the widening in both Europe’s iTraxx (Series 10) and the US CDX (Series 11) to 172bp and 225bp respectively – outside the previous wides seen in March. Confirmation that a global recession is on its way was the main factor driving the move.

But Barclays deal reprices agency sector.

When it comes to mergers and acquisitions, Turkey’s banking sector remains a land of opportunity. UniCredit analyst Matteo Ferrazzi says: “In central and eastern Europe, opportunities for mergers and acquisitions are few and far between. Most banks are already in solid hands or owned by foreign players. But in Turkey, it is a different case and there are still banks to be privatized.”

Martín Redrado, president of the Central Bank of Argentina, tells Sudip Roy why the banker should get through the global crisis intact.

The list of badly flawed financial institutions is long: Barclays (crumbling shareholder value), Société Générale (poor controls), UBS (total mismanagement), Lehman Brothers (vainglorious leadership), Bear Stearns (dereliction of management).

The witch-hunt of Dick Fuld is wrong. But that doesn’t mean it won’t continue.

The government bail out packages unveiled across developed countries last month may have prevented the collapse of a host of banks with more toxic assets than equity.

The central bank has begun to address the financial crisis but must take more action.