What does it take to be a pioneer in Corporate Social Responsibility?

Watch out Standard Chartered: a potential competitor might have been born. London-based investment bank Medicap, 100% owned by BMCE, a Moroccan bank, launched in November, and intends to focus on one of Standard Chartered’s specialities: Africa.

Deutsche Bank has hired Dierk Reuter as its new global head of e-commerce and algorithmic trading. Reuter was previously a managing director at Goldman Sachs in its equity algo business, although he also has extensive knowledge of FX. He was seconded to FXall by Goldman Sachs as its original chief technology officer when the multi-bank portal launched.

Infrastructure investment is not without risk. Even the US has found this; the collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis in August led to the realization that much of the country’s ageing infrastructure needs refurbishment. But flows of new money bring their own problems. Investment skills and experience remain the pre-eminent qualities required to succeed.

It is one thing to want a sovereign wealth fund but to actually set one up is a long and challenging process, as countries such as Brazil are discovering. Key issues such as infrastructure, hiring people and asset allocation need to be addressed before the investing process can even be considered.

Foreign exchange history is littered with the corpses of institutions that have looked at the industry and then decided to enter the market and become significant players. Now the perceived wisdom is that it is harder than ever for someone new to break into even the top 20, let alone the top five.

After months of silence and little sign of progress, Project Turquoise, an initiative started by a consortium of seven leading investment banks to create a pan-European multilateral trading facility, has started to take some concrete steps and gain credibility.

The proliferation of sovereign wealth funds is an opportunity and challenge for investment banks and asset managers.

With the dollar in seeming free fall, the Gulf Cooperation Council is set to discuss the wisdom of keeping its member states’ currencies pegged to the ailing currency.

The Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES), is fishing for extra funds after recalculating its plans and projecting that it will lend as much as 15% more than expected for the 2008-11 period, as it seeks to step up its investments in infrastructure. BNDES president Luciano Coutinho has been talking about growth of 10% in lending for infrastructure projects, focused on energy, communications, railways, ports, and water and sanitation. The bank has already announced that it needs an extra R$25 billion ($14 billion) for next year, prompting speculation about how the money will be found.

Japan’s Nomura booked a ¥73 billion ($621 million) loss from its residential mortgage-backed securities unit as the company announced its exit from the US RMBS market. The bank described the move as part of a general reduction in its US activities that will cut the number of employees by 400 to 900. Although the loss is small in comparison with the billion-dollar losses at some American banks, it is the largest yet reported by a major Japanese institution as a result of the sub-prime problem. In a statement, Nomura president and CEO Nobuyuki Koga acknowledged "disappointing results" in the US RMBS market but said that the bank had "moved decisively to deal with the issue and had avoided further and protracted losses by taking firm and immediate action".

Goldman Sachs has appointed Beatrice Sánchez as regional manager for its private wealth management business in Latin America. She will join the US bank next spring from HSBC Private Bank. Sánchez will be based in Miami.

Spotted in India: Goldman Sachs’s chairman and CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, enjoying the festivities at a party in New Delhi hosted by Azim Premji, the silver-haired chief of one of the subcontinent’s biggest IT firms, Wipro.

Those looking to harm Ms Whitney may want to think twice.

"I was talking to a Merrill Lynch banker the other day who said he wanted his firm to be like Goldman Sachs. I replied: ‘But you’re not.’ It’s like saying you want to be cool when you’re not"

"If the shoe was on the other foot, if these were sovereign wealth investors in France, Germany, the UK or the US earning fabulous returns, reducing national deficits, funding social security costs and investing into the rest of the world, would they think it was an issue? I suspect not"

Despite all the jawboning over the past few years about succession planning, banks seem woefully unprepared if they are forced to jettison a flailing chief executive because of cauldron-like shareholder pressure.

The US bank recovered from a similar crisis in the early 1990s. But this time around it lacks strong leadership.

While India and China look the best long-term bets, short-term gains could be easier to find elsewhere in the region.

The big banks’ Mlec fund might well unblock the present credit log jam. But there’s no escaping the fact that global liquidity has contracted and capital is being repriced upwards.

Many investors had been positioning themselves for an inevitable downturn in the leveraged finance market long before this summer’s dislocation. But, ironically, the underwriting abuses of the past few years mean that they could still face a long wait before any meaningful opportunities arise. Louise Bowman reports.

Markit purchase of IIC could herald creation of a global credit derivatives index.

The problem is with time rather than the legislation or its implementation, say analysts.

Market remains open but substantial new-issue premiums return.

The monolines should survive this crisis, but only because the prospect of them being downgraded is an outcome too far for the battered credit market.

The strong run of emerging markets equities looks set to continue.

Global problems require global answers.

The hoarding of cash by banks is understandable but dangerous.

Whether it’s Louis Hagen donning pom-poms and leading a Pfandbrief cheer or a University Challenge-style quiz during the lunch break, every conference needs its memorable moments.

HSBC’s global headquarters in Canary Wharf hosted an entirely different type of journalist last month at the press conference announcing the British bank’s sponsorship of the British and Irish Lions for their 2009 tour of South Africa.

Spain’s thriving cajas show the rest of Europe the way forward.

With little to choose between the capabilities of covered bond departments, issuers are granting mandates for different reasons.

The sinking dollar – not ­the sub-prime fallout – is the big hurdle for India’s most buoyant sectors.

There have been few signs of summer loving in the boardrooms of the bulge-bracket banks, with more and more senior executives being told by angered shareholders and directors "You’re the one that I (don’t) want" as post-sub-prime gloom spreads.

DIC Asset Management – a wholly owned subsidiary of Dubai International Capital, the international investment arm of Dubai Holding; HSBC Bank Middle East; and Oasis International Leasing – has concluded the first close of its MENA Infrastructure Fund with commitments totalling $300 million.

Mid Europa Partners, the leading independent private equity firm focused on central and eastern Europe, has established a notable benchmark for the industry in the region, raising €1.5 billion in commitments for its latest fund, Mid Europa Fund III.

Rob Walker has become head of Africa debt capital markets at Standard Bank, South Africa’s biggest banking group. Head of DCM Africa is a newly created position, reflecting the bank’s decision to centralize its Africa DCM coverage in London. "The region deserves a focused approach," says Florian von Hartig, managing director and global DCM head at Standard Bank. Rob Walker moved to London from Gaborone, Botswana, where he led the DCM efforts of Stanbic, as Standard Bank’s branch network in Africa excluding South Africa is known. Also joining Standard Bank’s new London-based Africa DCM team are Gaelle Biteghe, previously a relationship manager at Citi’s corporate and investment banking arm, and Kojo Amoo-Gottfried, an analyst previously at RBS.

The scramble for Africa just became institutionalized. Anyone who thought that the latest round of deals in Africa – led mainly by the Chinese – would be limited to the commodity sector had better revise their views. Two developments in the past month show that the Chinese are willing, even desperate, to take stakes in financial institutions on the continent. All indications suggest that direct investment inflows into Africa, some $39 billion in 2006, according to Unctad, the UN trade and development agency, are likely to be much higher for 2007. Some analysts expect the figure to hit $100 billion by 2010. The first deal, announced on October 31, is a partnership between Nigeria’s United Bank of Africa and China Development Bank. Details on the level of credit available to UBA are not being disclosed but it is understood to be significant. UBA feels it has stolen a march on its rivals and done the region a favour as well. "This partnership will contribute to strengthening of the economic cooperation between China and Nigeria and indeed the sub-region," says Tony Elumelu, chief executive of UBA. "The long-term funding gap in Africa is the highest in the world and this partnership will seek to close that gap."

Two of Kazakhstan’s leading companies are poised to fully test investor sentiment towards the central Asian state in the coming weeks, with big transactions in the debt and equity markets.

Concern is growing in Israel over the US MBS portfolio of what until recently was the country’s biggest bank by market capitalization, Hapoalim.

US buyout firm Carlyle Group has expanded its Warsaw-based central and eastern European team with the appointment of three professionals. Janusz Guy has been named a managing director, and Aleksander Kacprzyk and Piotr Nocen come in as directors. They join the team established and led by managing director Ryszard Wojtkowski.

The Spanish savings bank sector’s days of annual loan growth of more than 20% are over as construction wobbles and cédulas are tarnished by the international credit crunch. Cajas need to re-examine their funding strategies and business plans, writes Peter Koh.

The closing months of 2007 are proving to be full of intrigue for watchers of the Japanese banking industry, with the year’s two biggest M&A deals experiencing setbacks while smaller banks look to forge new alliances.

Rami Hayek has left his post as global head of equity and fixed-income investments at Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management group to join Credit Suisse. Hayek joins Omar Cordes in the role of co-head of Asia Pacific distribution for asset management, and will be based in Hong Kong.

Latin American banks are well positioned to endure the credit crunch and a potential global economic slowdown, according to regional specialists. So far, the banking system has weathered the storm and analysts expect it to continue to do so.

Hong Kong investors have become happily addicted to China’s flip-flop attitude to the so-called "through train" programme, under which mainland investors will in theory be allowed to buy stocks listed in the former UK colony.

Asset-backed securities not troubled by US sub-prime problems.

The sixth annual report on global investment management by KPMG has revealed that further convergence between hedge funds, private equity companies and long-only managers is to be expected.

A study by Integrity Research Associates shows a disparity between research conducted by traditional buy-side firms and their hedge fund counterparts that could explain the latter’s outperformance.

Concerns about lack of transparency force regulator to make participants register directly.

The Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile, on November 10 ended on a heated note after the Spanish king told Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, to "shut up".

After a pause prompted by US-inspired volatility in the global equity markets, Russian companies have resumed new-issue activity, helped by the belief that the strong economic environment in the country will help insulate it from the effects of the fallout from the US.

800,000,000,000 the total dollar value of ECM issuance so far this year. The figure, a record, was achieved on the back of 5,350 transactions. Global convertibles issuance so far this year at $159.6 billion has already exceed 2006’s convertibles total, and global IPO and follow-on volumes are not far off from reaching the total of all ECM issuance in 2006.

There’s a lot to be said for a monetary union for north America.

The London and Tokyo stock exchanges this November announced a joint venture to create a new junior market in Tokyo based on the LSE’s highly successful AIM model.

Argentina’s capital markets could be about to take off, as more than 20 companies line up to list on the Buenos Aires stock exchange.

The success of Trade Ideas, a platform developed by a consortium of investment banks for distributing trading ideas to their clients, shows that trading ideas are becoming an increasingly important element of the brokerage service that buy-side clients are willing to pay for.

Africa’s banking and capital markets are showing encouraging signs of maturity.

AUM may be still in its infancy but the quality of managers is appealing.