“The primary market has become our liquidity window, offering almost the only chance to put money to work in size. In the US high-grade market we started to see new issues coming through secondary trading levels last year. The primary market is no longer about gaining premium, it’s more about achieving your fill and getting a large quantity of money invested” Juan Landazabal of Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management explains how lack of liquidity in bond markets is driving the order frenzy in new issues

Fresh from its sponsorship of the blockbuster Henri Matisse: The Cutouts exhibition at London’s Tate Modern gallery, Bank of America Merrill Lynch was set to announce the 2014 grant recipients under its Art Conservation Project on June 12 at the Society of Antiquaries in Burlington House. Established in 2010 this initiative has now funded the restoration of 70 works of art in 25 countries around the world. These included Picasso’s Woman Ironing at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York and photographs from the personal collection of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at La Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City.

“It’s pretty simple, but it’s mind boggling”

Football fans around the world looking forward to running office sweepstakes, emptying online betting accounts and making sure the grad trainee fills in the wall chart each morning of the World Cup that begins on Thursday should thank their lucky stars the tournament can’t possibly be as dull as Goldman Sachs predicts.

Deutsche Bank’s third annual survey of global prices was released in May, giving a guide to the cheapest and most expensive places for standard consumer goods. Here is some advice extracted from the data: purchase your Adidas sports shoes in South Africa; shop in India for Levi jeans and your VW Golf convertible; get your iPhone in Japan; rent a car in China; watch your movies in Malaysia; subscribe to the Economist in Indonesia; buy your Mac from Canada; get your smokes in the Philippines.

The African Development Bank annual meeting celebrated its 50th anniversary during the annual meeting in Kigali this year. It was a grand event, attended by over 2,500 heads of state, ministers, delegates and journalists. The theme this year was ‘What Africa wants’, with an emphasis on what young Africans want – they are, of course, the continent’s future leaders. But it took Euromoney by surprise when it discovered that a photo of its journalist covering the meeting was featured on the homepage of the AfDB website, under the title: ‘What young Africans want’. The journalist is indeed young and does write about Africa, but unfortunately isn’t African. But she wouldn’t mind being one of the continent’s future leaders, if necessary.

The Ukrainian crisis has come at a bad time for Belarus’s state-driven economy, already in urgent need of external financing to fend off a balance-of-payments crisis.

Over-reliant on foreign investment to balance its books, Turkey is facing an investor retreat in the face of political instability. The long-term solution is a big expansion of domestic investment of untapped savings, but the instability is slowing this too.

Piyush Gupta, the CEO of Singapore’s DBS, has grabbed a once in a lifetime opportunity to build the bank’s Asian corporate and investment banking franchise. Gupta has a world view and doesn’t shy away from airing his thoughts on top bankers, China’s $1 trillion NPL headache, the death of cross-border bank M&A and what global banks are getting wrong in Asia

Iran has a heavily populated and complex banking sector, with several large state-owned banks that hold most of the country’s assets and deposits and at least 17 privately owned banks that tend to be smaller but more nimble and entrepreneurial. Euromoney profiles six institutions that represent different parts of the picture.

Asia’s financial regulators need to wake up to the need for rules that suit the region’s markets

The country is thumbing its nose at the doom-laden reports of hedge funds and letting its bond yields do the talking. Despite some unnerving economic data, the economy is firing on all cylinders and investors are keen to catch some of that momentum.

The hunt for yield has prompted a remarkable reversal of fortune for several sovereign borrowers in this year’s Euromoney survey. Those that have grasped the opportunity have reaped the rewards.

Find out who the best fixed-income issuers are, as nominated by investors. Under the categories of issuance strategy, credit quality and investor relations, this Euromoney global research survey brings you exclusive insight into who is at the top of this competitive market. Almost 2,000 respondents also nominated their top three credit-research teams or individuals across the same categories.

From sovereigns to non-bank financial institutions, the results of Euromoney’s Best Borrowers survey brings you the most important names and trends from all over the world during the past 12 months. Almost 1,000 investors were asked to nominate their top three borrowers in each category based on issuance strategy, credit quality and investor relations.

The world’s largest borrowers in the global debt capital markets have rated the products and services offered by the biggest deal arrangers. Pricing and distribution, team coverage, secondary-market support and issuer research are all covered in the survey, brought to you by Euromoney. With a 25% increase in respondents this year, the market insight offered is better than ever.

Can Dubai take advantage of Tehran’s rapprochement with the US to once again become Iran’s de facto financial link to the world?

Alex Thursby learnt his trade at StanChart and ANZ, but it’s to Asia’s regional champions that he looks for inspiration in his new role as CEO of National Bank of Abu Dhabi. Clients come first, but his big plan is a bold one: to put NBAD at the centre of where east meets west.

Fund managers are pouring into primary bond issues because of lack of secondary liquidity. But what happens if that herd mentality remains, or even grows, when the market turns?

The global financial crisis might mark the beginning of a broader realization that global hyper-capitalism has reached its limits. The failure of the AstraZeneca/Pfizer merger shows that, for good or ill, a backlash has begun.

There is no time to waste for intervention to overcome persistently low inflation in the eurozone.

Both presidential candidates market friendly; issuers’ credit strengths outweigh any political uncertainty.

Short-term gains for some energy firms and industrials; longer-term energy strategy review needed.

Bad debt dents growth; foreign investment hampered by ownership limits.

Government seeks regional competitors; trade relations boost with China on hold.

Orderbooks for European high-yield deals are unprecedented. Has the market outgrown its traditional allocation procedures?

Any new debt issue offering a scrap of yield has met huge demand from investors in recent months. As money floods into fixed-income funds, asset managers cannot put it to work in illiquid secondary markets, leaving the primary market as their only liquidity window. Small investors complain of being unfairly squeezed out from new-issue allocations. Large investors grumble that all other buyers are inflating their orders. And the elephant in the room? Nervous banks sense that regulators are preparing to pounce on traditional allocation practices in debt capital markets.

Private placements are booming as issuers and investors match trades outside the public market. But do investors fully understand the liquidity trade-off?

Banks now hold more sovereign bonds than insurance companies; demand from buffers driving deals.

Total issuance to hit $40 billion this year; UN initiative pushes for SRI fixed-income market.

Draft rules permit internal modelling; two sides to contract unlikely to agree.

Deutsche Bank finally managed to sell its Las Vegas casino – The Cosmopolitan – a few days before announcing a €8 billion capital raising that it will use to double down on its bet that it can make a viable return from a full-service global fixed-income business.

Standardization of trading and clearing; OTC set to decline.

Will make loan transfers less attractive for banks; technology a main driver of competition.

Markets rising as more investments kept at home; merger between main markets might occur.

Policy chief defends MENA role; Russian operations under scrutiny.

Reception for Greece deal “extraordinary”; Periphery has fallen prey to yield grab

Joint investment fund undertakes new deals; Kazakhstan’s nationalized bank sell-offs set to go.

J Safra Sarasin buys Morgan Stanley’s Swiss assets; Lombard Odier sees value in international growth

Barclays cuts its investment bank in half; Deutsche raises equity to protect market share.

The Las Vegas casino that Deutsche Bank finally managed to sell just before announcing its most recent capital increase – The Cosmopolitan – uses the catchphrase “Just the right amount of wrong” to tempt customers.

Jenkins is at a dead-end. This is what happens when you have no strategy and just muddle through instead of taking the necessary and painful decisions.

Chief digital and data officers are helping drive banking into a new technological age.

When Euromoney penetrated the economy and finance ministries in Kiev in late May, as well as the central bank, it found an atmosphere of unease and uncertainty. A supposed dream-team, which in reality is a collection of talented and driven novices, has a battle on its hands to keep Ukraine’s economy afloat. Can Kubiv, Schlapak and Sheremeta make the transition from protest to pro-growth?

A dangerous liquidity mismatch is building up in large parts of the investor base for high-yield bonds

Shades of Gwyneth and Chris: Simon Robey and Simon Warshaw consciously uncoupled from Simon Robertson.

“Sorted that allocation 4 u, big boy”. Is this the kind of email from a syndicate manager or fixed-income salesman at one of the leading bond underwriters to a favoured investor client that we can look forward to sniggering over?

A lack of rain to fill the dams that power Brazil is becoming a potential crisis. But as experts call for action to protect dwindling reservoirs the government refuses to act, and running the hydrology risk is becoming increasingly dangerous for it.

Diamond Bank is the latest Nigerian lender to issue Eurobond; dollar funding is necessary for the oil and gas sector.

Farhan Faruqui leaves Citigroup to join ANZ as head of international business.