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September 2000

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LATEST ARTICLES

  • Conversation in Kazkakhstan in recent months has centred on one topic: oil. What appears to be a major new find has excited locals, multinationals operating in the energy sector and buyers of an oversubscribed sovereign Eurobond. The prospect of this impoverished country, where the average wage is barely $100 a month, becoming the next Kuwait has also enabled the nation teasingly to play prospective bride to both the West and Russia. Ted Kim reports
  • To date, most Arab countries have been insulated from outside pressure due to highly protected markets and huge oil reserves. But foreign competition is set to increase, especially for markets joining the World Trade Organization. The biggest banks in small countries will have to look outside their domestic markets for growth, either through acquisitions or alliances. Darren Stubing reports
  • There's a lot of hot air in Khartoum, and according to one lawyer working for Talisman Energy, the Canadian oil explorer, not all of it is blowing in from the Sahara. "Well, if you include planting date trees along the roads adjacent to the Nile - well yes, I suppose the infrastructure is improving." He pauses: "Oh wait, they died. Nobody watered them." The taxi driver swerves to miss a huge pothole in the main road and then quickly veers back into the street in an attempt to avoid those sleeping on the footpaths.
  • The European securitization market used to be characterized by small, esoteric deals rather than the large standardized issues dominant in the US. Things are changing, but not towards the US model. Strategic securitizations to finance M&A, synthetic structures and deals to cover non-performing loans are fuelling investment banks’ enthusiasm for the market. Michael Peterson reports
  • At the Golden Tiger (U Zlateho Tigra) in the back streets of old Prague on a Sunday in midsummer there are no tourists. The schoolroom benches along the back wall resound to the din of Czech voices, leaving no space for the casual visitor to squeeze in.
  • The policy team of new Mexican president Vicente Fox has thought of everything. An impressive set of reforms covering the central bank, capital markets, the fiscal deficit, the energy sector and judiciary are all laid out ready. But can they be got through congress and made to work free from interference and corruption? Mexico is facing one of the biggest make or break periods in its history, writes Andrea Mandel-Campbell
  • Information technology is by far India’s most dynamic sector but its success comes despite rather than because of government initiative. The BJP government has sloughed off the Congress Party’s socialism but is desperately slow at implementing its objectives of privatizing and increasing foreign investment. There’s some hope, though, in the initiatives being taken by state governments. Kala Rao reports
  • Bankers and their regulators converging on Prague for the IMF/World Bank meetings this month should be nervous about the vulnerability of the world financial system to attack - not by aliens, hackers or international terrorists but by the shortcomings of thousands of interdependent institutions. Highly correlated and linked financial markets mean contagion can spread in seconds. Short of rebuilding national barriers, like electronic iron curtains, there's no way to isolate ourselves from contamination. The reforming countries of central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are a weak link. They need more help and example from the west. Bringing in foreign strategic investors isn't a panacea, as the following pages show.
  • Forewarned is Forearmed: or How to survive in some of the riskiest business travel destinations in the world
  • China’s economy continues its fast growth and its leaders appear firmly committed to continuing reform, as the country prepares for entry into WTO which may attract further substantial foreign direct investment. But the past 20 years of reform have been comparatively easy, having been imposed by an all-powerful central government on a closed economy. Now China must begin to compete globally and to cope with political tension at home arising from the uneven distribution of the benefits of reform. Phillip Moore reports
  • The economic boom of recent years has created a large class of wealthy individuals with money to spare. These high-net-worth individuals now form the most enticing target market for fund managers. Meanwhile the internet is democratizing financial services, in the process opening the markets up to a swathe of new private investors. The pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap supermarket philosophy which has already swept through the US is now set to engulf the rest of the world. What does this mean for the markets? Julian Marshall reports
  • Brazil looks set to meet fiscal targets agreed with the IMF and also seems to have inflation under control. But fiscal discipline has rested on increasing revenues rather than cutting expenditure, a course that will eventually restrain rather than promote growth. Reform of the tax and welfare system has barely been tackled and doubts persist about whether the government has enough political clout to see it through. A key gain is that the real economy is moving out of stagnation and into growth. Jonathan Wheatley reports
  • In the heartland of Gotham and the Bay Area of San Francisco, dwarfed by the high-rise headquarters of those they seek to challenge, lurk a select few individuals waiting to strike. These men are behind the mutant companies seeking to change the dynamics of equity capital-raising forever. They are much smaller than their prey, but less weighed down by legacy systems. The time has come for the internet-based new issue houses to show what they can do, reports Antony Currie
  • After the BJP-led coalition came to power last year, prime minister Vajpayee set up a new department of disinvestment and placed a young, telegenic lawyer, Arun Jaitley in charge.
  • The boom in yen-denominated bond issuance looks likely to be sustained. Foreign corporates are coming to the samurai market because they need yen funds, not because they intend to swap into dollars. There’s also strong demand for emerging market sovereign bonds from Japanese investors starved of yield by low domestic interest rates. Anja Helk reports
  • Independent market regulation and a more relaxed approach to foreign investment are among new policies setting Arab states on the road to more dynamic markets. Not before time – accession to the World Trade Organization means the doors will have to open to foreign competition.
  • As the huge conglomerates that have long dominated Germany's economy transform themselves into sleek, focused businesses, a procession of corporate assets has come to the market.
  • The "Turn Prague into Seattle" slogan has been pinned to thousands of protesters' T-shirts, websites have been set up, and accommodation organized months ago. The protesting community has prepared well for the 55th annual IMF/World Bank meetings from September 19 to 28.
  • With the recent launch of the London based I-WeX.com internet site, European corporates accustomed to hedging against Financial risk should be able to manage another great uncertainty - weather - just as American corporates have been able to do since 1997 through weather derivatives.
  • Having so far failed to set European investment management alight, Morgan Stanley's asset-management business is making a new push in the institutional market.
  • Head of investment banking, Barclays Capital Americas
  • Governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • As bankers, policymakers and pundits packed their bags in readiness to travel to Prague for the IMF/World Bank conference, the Czech Republic's most (in)famous Financier was making no such arrangements. Viktor Kozeny, aka the pirate of Prague or the bouncing Czech, will be 5,000 miles away, sitting out proceedings in the comfort of his Bahamas home.
  • If a market is mature when its founders move on, the Czech Republic has Finally come of age. Richard Wood was one of the First expatriates to arrive in Prague after the fall of the Berlin Wall and built from scratch the internationally respected stockbroking Firm Wood&Co. But ever alert to the prospects for exciting times and doing business, Wood has recently moved to Istanbul.
  • The increasing pace of developments in both the syndicated loan and the debt capital markets
  • We are not quite at the end of the current equity market correction. The next few months may be volatile or downright violent. But I'd start buying into any downturn in US and European stocks right now - particularly in traditional economy sectors where smart management can apply cyber-magic to the benefit of shareholders.
  • Ever on the look-out for new and lucrative corners of the capital markets, many firms have identified what is often called capital management as a promising niche. At its most respectable, this business consists of advising banks and other companies on how to measure and manage the true economic risks of their activities. More often than not, however, it is about cold-calling bank treasurers and trying to sell them ideas for complex deals. Michael Peterson reports
  • Traditional institutional fund management no longer holds much appeal for Prudential. Earlier this year the UK insurer sold off its pension fund equity business - some £11.5 billion ($18.5 billion) of assets under management - because it was not turning enough profit.
  • After the fanfare of the meeting between chairman Kim Jong-Il and president Kim Dae-Jung in Pyongyang in mid-year, moves toward a closer relationship have been slow. North Korea’s Tokyo-based unofficial spokesman, Kim Myong-Chol, has predicted peaceful reunification of Korea within five years. It might happen. But the road to unity will be longer and harder than was the path to German unification, finds Kevin Rafferty
  • At some point the government plans to privatize the Hong Kong Airports Authority, and is expected to give it more attention once it has sold off the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC).
  • Securitizing whole companies may be seen as the future of securitization in Europe, but so far only a few examples of this technique have taken place – and most of them have been in the UK pub industry. What is it about UK drinking dens that makes them so suitable for securitization?
  • The ebb and Flow of the Asian debt and equity markets in the past three years has inevitably brought upheavals in investment banking in the region, and it looks as if there are more to come. Avinder Bindra, Citibank's outgoing head of global loan products of Asia, Japan and Australia, foresees continued consolidation among banks, with the number of loan arrangers already diminishing because of mergers involving Chase and Chemical, Deutsche Bank and Citibank. Twenty years ago there were 20 loan arrangers on the scene, now there are eight or 10 globally. There are tentative signs of the Japanese banks coming back into the Asian market and rebuilding assets. "Competition is there for banking lending that would not have been the case a year ago," says David Russell, executive director for debt capital markets at Nomura International in Hong Kong.
  • Financial talent is hard to come by these days, as any headhunter will confirm. And it can be even more difficult to keep. Case in point: Ricardo Hausmann, until recently the Inter-American Development Bank’s chief economist. Hausmann joins the Harvard faculty this month. But don’t expect him to be saying many good-byes. The international financial community seems bound to hear quite a bit more from this dynamic player. Hausmann shared some of his characteristic all-or-nothing views with Euromoney’s James Smalhout as he was packing his bags for Cambridge
  • Membership of the World Trade Organization has taken China 14 years of campaigning. It's almost there.
  • The collapse of the Sogo department store, the largest bankruptcy of a non-financial corporation yet seen in Japan, is significant in two important ways. It shows the fragility of economic recovery. Persistently slow growth may leave many more Japanese companies at risk and the country’s banks may suffer more bad debts. Second, it shows the old conservative consensus breaking down. Shinsei Bank, the old LTCB under new American ownership, refused to play along with a bank-led bail-out. And when politicians attempted a public rescue, an angry populace shouted it down. Painful corporate restructuring is at hand, reports Kevin Rafferty
  • Equity capital market bankers are in a state of shock. It’s not simply that their market has seen record volumes of issuance this year. It is rather that the international equities market has gone through an entire lifecycle of change in less than 12 months. Michael Peterson reports
  • As delegates file into this year’s World Bank/IMF meetings in Prague, the mood with regard to Latin America will be much more positive than in previous years. In 1998, Brazil was about to devalue, and panic was in the air. In September 1999, Ecuador became the first country ever to default on its Brady bonds, right in the middle of the annual meetings. Come 2000, and Ecuador has successfully restructured its debt, Mexico has had its first ever truly democratic election, ending more than 70 years of one-party rule in the process, and the Brazilian success story continues. Moody’s has upgraded Mexico to investment-grade status, and upgrades from Standard & Poor’s in both Mexico and Brazil are seen as inevitable. But challenges remain, Felix Salmon reports
  • With broken china still littering the office of the World Bank’s chief economist, Nicolas Stern finally arrived this July to start picking up the pieces. Stern, a mild-mannered man with degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, comes to Washington after six years as chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. His predecessor, the celebrated and unconventional Joseph Stiglitz, raised an unprecedented ruckus during his brief but stormy tenure in the job. His final controversy was the manner of Stern’s appointment to succeed him. So what is Stern’s agenda now, asks James Smalhout
  • Delegates at the IMF meeting in Prague this month will have a variety of cultural events to enjoy away from the main event.
  • In his first months as president Vladimir Putin has been gathering together the threads of power. Oligarchs have been curbed, regional governors put in their place and former KGB colleagues given influential positions. How Putin will use his authority remains uncertain. He seems intent on reforming the tax code and the customs administration and is committed to helping small and medium-size enterprises. But a start has barely been made on economic liberalization and the reduction of state intervention. Ben Aris reports
  • Grigory Marchenko, Chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan
  • Taiwan avoided the excesses of Asian equity market euphoria last year and has escaped the worst of the stock market corrections in 2000. Some imaginative plays have helped it to the top of the Asian primary equity market this year. But even now concerns about a slowing economy, political uncertainty and a fragile banking system have many analysts believing the market has peaked for Taiwan issuers. Gill Baker reports
  • Washington wags used to quip that former IMF managing director Michel Camdessus wanted to be “the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral”. They had a point. Camdessus put the Fund on an ambitious course to be many things to many people during his 13-year tenure. That ended in February and today his successor Horst Köhler is getting back to core principles. He says he wants a leaner, meaner IMF. Now he has to deliver. James Smalhout reports
  • Asia’s equity markets have seen their fair share of triumphs and disasters in the past 12 months, with technology stocks still baffling market watchers in some markets and seducing them in others.
  • A run on Romania’s biggest bank was stopped in its tracks. The episode highlights nervousness in the system as banks are being readied for sale. Some on the inside say the situation’s not so bad as it looks and that the supervisors are getting tougher. But foreigners are still asking a host of questions, as Erik D’Amato reports.
  • Poland suffered a dramatic bank collapse earlier this year and non-performing loans are building up on the balance sheets of many survivors. But there’s little need to panic. Poland has sold its banking system to foreign entrants attracted by the country’s growth potential. Lots of Poles don’t like what has happened. But it may be the model for the rest of the region. Ronan Lyons reports
  • The last of Poland's large commercial banks to be privatized could prove to be the most troublesome.
  • A fear of foreign influence and a desire to escape the social costs of consolidation have slowed bank reform in Slovenia, but with likely EU membership looming change cannot be put off much longer. Christina White reports
  • "Ever since foreign banks were able to open representative offices we were confident that the door would open wider and wider," says Samuel Lau, manager of HSBC's Beijing branch office. "But we never knew when or how far the door would open. [China's impending membership of] WTO establishes a Firm timetable which is important in terms of planning future resource allocation."
  • If all goes as planned Komercni banka, the second largest Financial institution in the Czech Republic and the last state-owned bank, will Find itself in the hands of a strategic partner by the end of March 2001. As the privatization draws near, the Czech government appears to have learned from the mistakes it made during previous bank sales.
  • Issuer: Dow Chemical Amount: $300 million Type of issue: Online domestic US corporate bond auction Launch date: August 15
  • When an institution declares that under no circumstances will it reform you can be sure it faces a rocky future. The idea that any economic player, public or private, can carry on acting in the same old way, regardless of external changes, strikes most people as absurd. Yet this is what the Paris Club believes. Events will surely force it to shape up or wind up.
  • A year is a long time in the capital markets and who better to demonstrate it than those consummate Financial politicians in Malaysia.
  • It has been a busy year for presidential and parliamentary elections - and coup attempts. Throw in worker unrest (Peru, Ecuador, Ghana), violent separatism in Indonesia and looming emerging market elections and it would be wise to expect big changes in Euromoney’s first Country Risk ranking in 2001. Keri Geiger reports
  • By most economic and development measures, China would seem to have taken a firm lead over India in the great race between these two Asian contenders to become regional and global economic superpowers. Yet India, despite its slower economic growth, its poorer yet faster-increasing population and its confused politics, now has thriving new-economy sectors.
  • For decades America ran huge budget deficits, only balancing the books in the last two years of the most astonishing economic boom on record. Now the two presidential candidates are rubbing their hands at the prospect of spending huge projected surpluses. They should be planning to meet the country’s real long-term financial challenges, rather than frittering the bounty away in popular tax cuts and spending. The age of sound economic leadership in the US may be about to come to an end. Antony Currie reports
  • The great triumph of last year’s IMF/World Bank meeting was the unveiling of an agreement on debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries. But now that the promises are coming due, the international financial institutions are claiming poverty. This is special pleading - they have more than enough resources to cover the entire $45 billion multilateral share of the debt. The familiar cycle of debt and default will repeat itself, Adam Lerrick argues, unless the reform required of borrowing nations is matched by reform in the agencies themselves.
  • Some emerging markets have found the route to salvation, others are a whisker from damnation. By Michael Peterson
  • Remember how the internet was going to put securities firms out of business? It isn’t happening yet. Never before have investment banks made so much money from international capital markets. Volumes are rising across all categories. Underwriting fees are holding steady. And lucrative areas such as capital instruments, leveraged finance and securitization are bursting into life. Meanwhile, the equity markets have been a thrill-a-minute roller-coaster ride. But times aren’t as good for issuers and investors. As prices slide, bond and equity buyers alike have lost money. And issuers have had to jump through hoops to complete deals in crowded and volatile markets. Michael Peterson reports
  • Emerging markets may be back in favour but few investment markets are as exotic as Palestine.