David Murrin isn't a run-of-the-mill hedge fund manager. His Soros-style investment strategies might not be for everyone and might appear daunting at first. After graduating with an honours degree from the University of Exeter in physics with geophysics, he spent two years working in oil exploration in the jungles of Papa New Guinea, living and working with local tribes and beginning to formulate personal theories on collective emotional behaviour. These have enabled him to develop a unique method of analyzing behavioural patterns in the markets. By his 30th birthday, Murrin wanted to be running his own business. In preparation, he spent the next seven and a half years at JPMorgan gathering skills in price prediction and modelling. He traded the major bond, interest rate, bullion, FX and equity index markets and founded and managed the European technical analysis group there. He co-founded Emergent Asset Management with Susan Payne in 1997.

Asset managers' clients are increasingly demanding specialist input to mandates. It's a demand best met by boutiques or big firms that have set up boutique-like teams. Deutsche Asset Management has been tardy in responding to these pressures. It is now changing its style, but has it left it too late?

It has been a stop-start year in the international debt capital markets, with banks themselves the latest group of issuers to take advantage of investors' search for yield by raising low-cost funds. Banks' capital markets desks are struggling to sell corporates on the joys of leverage.

Professional services

Leveraged buy-outs

By Camilla Palladino

www.breakingviews.com

The Church of England's senior prelate, Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, hosted a lively discussion about capital flows in the global economy and their impact on emerging markets last month.

For children with backgrounds of poverty, neglect and abuse, the City can seem an incomprehensible and daunting place. Commerzbank's head of treasuries, Can Biritrim, however, is keen to show them it can be a source of support. Working with the charity Kids Company, which supports London children who have severe behavioural, emotional and social difficulties as a result of childhood trauma or neglect, Biritrim, together with head of prop trading Tim Fisher, invited three of the children the charity works with to the London office for the day.

Nothing indicates better how a business has matured than when established forces start buying and upstarts are willing to sell.

Growing investor interest in foreign exchange as an asset class is leading to a rapid expansion of volume and has prompted service providers to offer new products featuring greater speed, transparency and efficiency.

Latin American domestic structured issuance has caught up with the more established cross-border market, thanks in large part to the work of the International Finance Corporation and structured products expert Lee Meddin. But this is just the start of Meddin's plans for the emerging markets, with Latin America likely to take a pioneering role again.

While many focused their attention on JPMorgan Chase's acquisition of the hedge fund Highbridge, another nimble operator was busily getting ready for its initial public offering. On September 30 Primus Guaranty raised $139.7 million.

By Camilla Palladino

Josef Ackermann is giving Deutsche Bank a spring clean. He has streamlined the board and reaffirmed an ambitious return on equity target in the face of mounting doubt about its feasibility. He is preparing the bank he leads for hefty restructuring and job cuts. That might be what it needs but is not in itself a strategy.

A burst of primary market activity in Europe last month had equity capital markets bankers predicting a busy fourth quarter. This might be wishful thinking. Although historical data suggest that the months after a US presidential election are usually relatively buoyant, confidence surveys indicate that equity investors are still in cautious and highly selective mood.

Wealthy Americans are getting more demanding when it comes to investment advice. Independent advisers claim to have tapped significant client defections from full-service brokers. The brokers say this is not happening. What's clear is that objective advice is a crucial selling point. Brokers need to do more than pile up new product offerings and must focus on their strengths, being prepared to offer their competitors' expertise when they lack it themselves.

India

As this year's Euromoney poll indicates, the banks that best satisfy their clients' risk management needs are the ones that have succeeded in integrating the function into the teams that offer capital raising products.

As Euromoney goes to press, Santander is set to take over the UK's Abbey National, propelling the Spanish bank into the frontline of European retail banking. But the past won't go away for Santander chairman Emilio Botín. The Spanish courts have ruled that he has serious charges to answer. At the same time minority shareholders who harangue him at Santander's AGM are planning to put their case to Abbey investors in London. Ben Sills reports from Madrid.

With credit analysts predicting that overall levels of investment-grade corporate issuance in Europe will end the year even lower than they had previously expected, banks are turning their attention to the more lucrative and active European high-yield market.

Property company mixes secured and unsecured debt technology to preserve operational flexibility after its refinancing.

After years of negotiations, Serbia has signed a deal with London Club creditors to restructure about $2.8 billion in debt. The deal paves the way for the sovereign's return to the capital markets later this year. But how will Serbia be received there, and who did the deal favour?

Without much fanfare, the American Stock Exchange has achieved remarkable success over the past two years in attracting new listings, especially from foreign issuers.

Automation of short-term investment is at the cutting edge of cash management, but deciding how to take advantage of this is not easy. Banks are making an effort to rationalize the routines involved.

For New Yorkers 'wait' is like the f-word, but in recent weeks they've had to display uncharacteristic patience.

Belarus

The SEC's authority to reform the US funds sector is coming under fire — even from law firms. Legal action against the SEC is being expected in some quarters.

As Oscar Wilde said, there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. For structured finance professionals, there can't be much that is more gratifying than being talked about at the annual Global ABS summit in Barcelona. With anyone who is anyone in attendance, it's the ultimate confirmation of your status in the industry. So when US monoline insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC) announced in June that it had hired Rick Watson, formerly head of ABS and CDOs, structured capital markets, at HSBC in London, the timing was perfect. The news went round the Hotel Arts and the adjoining bars and beach-clubs and Watson was a celebrity.

While the Gazprom-Rosneft merger will make FDI in Russia easier, Ukraine's attempt to keep the retail petrol market competitive is on hold.