The landscape of the Italian banking market has been completely redrawn over the past 12 months but consolidation remains work in progress.

As a consequence of Merrill Lynch’s revolving door policy in FX, Steve Kemp has resigned from the Foreign Exchange Committee. Kemp, just one of the many global FX heads Merrill has had over the past decade, left the bank this summer. Merrill has had few representatives on the Federal Exchange Bank of New York-sponsored committee, which is seen as a prestigious role in the market. Members have to be invited on and there is no guarantee that Merrill will get to sit at the top table again.

Losses from trader error in December should have been reversible, securities house claims.

Leading US private equity firm Darby Overseas Investments is poised to begin pre-marketing on a global emerging markets fund that will have a heavy focus on Asian investments.

First Fiji, now the Seychelles. Suddenly, all those long hours that originators spend on planes en route to visit potential clients seem less tedious.

“A private equity play in China is exactly that – a private equity play. The price may go up or down, but that’s not a China strategy”

“When you talk about leasing, everyone thinks you’re talking about cars. My mother-in-law thinks I sell cars for a living”

The gap between the top two and their closest rivals continues to increase, according to results from our recent survey on international cash management.

Europe’s supranational and agency borrowers are becoming ever bigger issuers in the international capital markets even as their historical missions appear to have been met and the banking and financial market to have matured enough to finance at commercial rates most of the lending risks the agencies assume. The debate as to whether these subsidized institutions distort or complement the capital markets continues unabated, as private lenders submit to capital adequacy directives that do not extend to the agencies. Alex Chambers reports.

Do superheroes need financial advice, and if so, how do you go about giving it?

Central bank governor emphasizes the resilience of the financial system at a time of crisis.

Barclays Capital has identified a budding mortgage-backed securities market as one of the key reasons for its decision to open an investment banking and broker-dealer business in Mexico. The UK bank started operations in Mexico last month with $100 million in capital. Barcap also hopes to take advantage of the fast-growing local capital markets, as more companies seek to raise money through high-yielding peso-denominated bonds.

Arab Bank has bought a 50% stake in Turkey’s MNG Bank, as part of its expansion plans. MNG Bank was established in 1991, and offers retail banking and capital markets services through 11 branches across Turkey.

As summer draws to a close, bankers and investors are gearing up for the rush of new bond issues that traditionally hits the market in the last quarter. In the emerging markets it’s little different. The pipeline of deals out of Russia is strong, Asia is witnessing one of its busiest times of the year and Latin American issuance should pick up now that Brazil’s election is out of the way. Even in the Middle East, corporates are beginning to appreciate the benefits of the capital markets.

More than two years after the enlargement of the European Union, many large equity investors remain convinced that the combined equity markets of central and eastern Europe are too small for them to invest in, despite a combined equity market capitalization of €211 billion at the end of 2005.

Hedge fund rating is a noble goal but Moody’s and S&P’s approaches fail to fill the bill.

As credit research is increasingly geared towards short-term trading ideas rather than fundamentals, there could be a dangerous dearth of information when defaults begin to rise.

The return of hard underwriting on recent bond deals underscores how mundane and risk-free the business had become.

"The bosses of Europe’s big three stock exchanges, the LSE, Deutsche Börse and Euronext, deserve to have their heads knocked together. They appear to have let their egos get in the way of getting together and forming a genuine European powerhouse."

Sovereign liability management exercises continued apace last month in the region, with Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay executing either debt swaps or local-currency deals. Strong market conditions are encouraging sovereigns to clean up their yield curves or reduce their foreign exchange exposure in favour of local currency. Brazil issued a R$1.6 billion ($750 million) global bond denominated in reais. It was the sovereign’s second such deal. Colombia followed with a $1 billion offering of 2037s. Part of the proceeds will be used to buy back up to $700 million of global bonds. Finally, Uruguay entered the market with a $400 million-equivalent inflation-indexed peso bond.

Government’s attempt to develop venture capital industry lack clarity.

“Nobody should be scared of socialism, it’s about equality”

Polish private equity firm Enterprise Investors has closed its most recent fund, Polish Enterprise Fund VI, at €658 million, making it the largest ever fund raised for central and eastern Europe.

Buzz over US continues, but Europe still getting its act together.

There have been plenty of compelling reasons to go short credit as an asset class this year. Investment-grade corporates are under threat from leveraged takeover by huge private equity funds; at the lower end of the credit spectrum, the easy availability of cheap credit even to risky B-rated borrowers has stretched leverage ratios to unsustainable levels.

Over the years ABN Amro has suffered a series of setbacks. But Niall Cameron argues that internal noise over organization charts has died down and the focus is on the business.

Likelihood of “ratings shopping” by borrowers/dealers increases.

The possibility that the long end of the US yield curve might continue to invert has supported long-end issuance from international sovereign and supranational issuers.

Taking the successful US CRE CDO model and simply applying it to the European CMBS market is unlikely to work.

Investors get fat yields as rating agencies seek extra credit enhancement.

Italian regional authorities’ healthcare securitizations are under threat following the ratings of Lazio, Campania and Abruzzo being placed on negative watch by Standard & Poor’s. Threats to the accounting treatment given by Eurostat and also domestic authorities point to the regions’ healthcare securitizations being classed as debt. This gave S&P the jitters over how they would continue to fund their healthcare deficits.

In contrast to the US, where supply is lacklustre and only just ahead of 2005 volumes, it will be a hectic last quarter in the European securitization market. Last year in November the market saw an incredible supply of €60 billion. Bankers expect that number to be easily matched this time around and maybe even surpassed. In fact 2006 total issuance is already 20% ahead of last year. In addition to jumbo UK RMBS, which is forecast by syndicate officials to figure highly, balance sheet CLO issuance from the likes of RBS, HSBC, Barclays and ABN is also said to be lined up.

Australia is going ahead with a scaled-down sale of its Telstra holdings. But tension persists between the telecom operator and the government.

From a research note entitled The largest OTC exchange

FXMarketSpace has made four senior appointments as it gears up for its launch in 2007. Two of the appointments, Jane Forster and Dan Rosenberg, have been lured from rival EBS. Yigal Oren moves over from Reuters, FXMarketSpace’s 50% owner, and Debra Rabichow comes from futures commission merchant Goldenberg, Heymer & Co.

Appointment expected to renew exchange’s focus on stagnant volumes in options contracts.

Stocks traded on emerging market stock exchanges now account for 16% of global equities, according to Standard & Poor’s. However, despite these stocks’ growing weight and in many cases improvements in transparency and corporate governance, investors remain fickle. According to data from Emerging Portfolio Fund Research, a fund flows tracker, investors pulled $15 billion from emerging market stocks between mid-May and mid-September, reducing the year-to-date cumulative inflow to $17 billion.

Although NYSE member firms that conduct business with the public reported second-quarter 2006 after-tax profits of $2.95 billion and revenues of $78.64 billion, up from $1.13 billion and $53.32 billion in the second quarter of 2005, specialists reported a fall in both after tax profit and revenue. For the second quarter of 2006, NYSE specialists reported after-tax profit of just $26 million. During the same period in 2005, the specialists reported an after-tax profit of $33 million. Total specialist revenue in Q2 of 2006 was $215 million, compared with $220 million in Q2 of 2005.

Markets used to move at the hint of change in the political landscape. These days, surprise election results seem to have little or no impact.

Graduation day might be approaching for some of the larger companies listed on London’s AIM (Alternative Investment Market) but the sheer volume of competitors means some might not make the cut.

52,300,000,000 funds raised in IPOs in dollars in the Emea region so far this year. That’s 60% up on funds raised over the same period in 2005.

In the article in the September issue of Euromoney entitled, "How

More evidence of the chronic staff shortages still faced by Asia’s private banks came in September with news that UBS, the largest private bank in the region, has resorted to constructing its own purpose-built training facility for new recruits and existing staff to cater for the demands of its burgeoning Asia wealth management business.

While the current stage in the leverage cycle benefits corporate borrowers, concern has been raised about the protection that bondholders receive against declining ratings and event risk. Does good corporate governance have anything to offer this set of stakeholders, and should it have? Florian Neuhof reports.

There has been no relief from the pressures that last year’s annual cash management poll detected: globalization, declining margins and intensified competition. Smaller banks face a choice between expanding to compete or forming difficult-to-implement partnerships. Some might soon begin to question whether all the effort is worthwhile. Lawrence White reports.

More than 8,000 hedge funds are now registered in the Cayman Islands.

Eurozone countries are continuing to boost productivity vis-à-vis that in the US; consequently European equities are outperforming American ones.

Investigations into the backdating of stock options has caused around half of the more than 100 companies under scrutiny by the SEC and/or the Department of Justice to miss deadlines for filing earnings. More are likely to follow, says Todd Fernandez, senior analyst at independent institutional research firm Glass Lewis & Co.

RAB's recent acquisition is second in two years.

The man behind Man Group is to step down from his role of CEO.

Benefit of hedge fund ratings to investors is questionable.

Further regulation on delivery needed, says consultant.

IMF: Singapore welcomes the right sort of people

The debt burden is a growing worry, not least because many of those that invest in the debt market’s increasingly ingeniously packaged instruments are themselves heavily leveraged.

The postponement because of rain of the annual charity hedge fund polo tournament in Darien, Connecticut, meant a few key players were unable to make it, but it didn’t stop play altogether.

Although benchmarking has a part to play in some areas, there is no single approach to best execution that suits all markets.

Zar Amrolia has been appointed global head of foreign exchange at Deutsche Bank. His promotion is one of a number of senior-level changes at the bank. Amrolia replaces Jim Turley, who had the wider role of head of global currencies and commodities. In turn, Turley has moved to become global head of the institutional client group, replacing Brian Reid, who is taking a sabbatical after 21 years in the industry. Sources say that Reid intends to return to Deutsche in 2007. Someone familiar with Deutsche’s structure described Turley’s new role as “huge”. He will have global responsibility for the bank’s institutional investors and hedge funds.

One hedge fund blew up and lost a reported $400 million after getting caught short. The other lost $4.5 billion after finding itself long and wrong. At first glance, the only connection the two companies have is that both were hedge funds, and both were punting in the highly volatile natural gas market.

RBS has astonished the securitization market this year with a remarkable pace of issuance. Shortly after the bank issued £11.25 billion-worth of RMBS paper in just three months, director of capital management and securitization Ron Huggett explained the bank’s new thinking to Louise Bowman.

Most investors want to invest in the best companies; Asia is no exception to this. The region’s best-managed companies are a diverse bunch but have some crucial characteristics in common. Chris Leahy reports.