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What now is the model for hedge funds, finance companies and the former users of the securitization markets?

Neel Kashkari, the Treasury's assistant secretary of international affairs is named the man in charge of Tarp. Kashkari's assessment of what was taking place was not pretty. "Investors are stuffing money under the mattress." It’s an almost quaint image – one that is associated with a bygone age when people did not trust banks. Those times are back.

Nomura’s great leap forward: Will Lehman takeover help fulfil its global ambitions?

Amendments made to accounting rules by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in mid October could allow banks to write back billions in losses incurred in trading books.

In an attempt to boost liquidity to financial institutions the US Federal Reserve has unveiled a scheme to support money market investors. Money Market Investor Funding will buy $540 million of short-term (up to three months) bank paper from funds. The Fed has created 10 private sector SPVs that can buy paper issued by up to 10 financial institutions – with concentration limits of 15%. Funds that sell into this programme receive 90% of the purchase price in cash and the rest as ABCP – which is effectively a first loss tranche for the individual SPV.

Nomura has named the executive committee for the acquired business in Europe; as was expected the majority of front office staff are ex-Lehman Brothers bankers taking up similar roles to those they held around Europe before the deal, while the back office management team tend to be from Nomura.

In October the credit crunch finally devastated global equity markets as investor panic threatened to bring down all but the very strongest banks. Alex Chambers was pounding the sidewalks of New York just as the crisis entered its most tumultuous period and perhaps its denouement.

The association of German Pfandbrief banks, the VDP, was increasingly seen as the grumpy old man of covered bonds before the credit crunch. But since the spotlight has been thrown back on to the safety of securities, the VDP has been fully vindicated.

Christian Wait, global head of sales at Lehman Brothers, has moved to Standard Chartered where he will head global markets. He reports to Lenny Feder, global head of financial markets. Wait, who was European head of DCM before he moved back to the US to head up structured credit sales in 2005, will be based in Singapore. Meanwhile, Ben Katz, a former senior FIG structuring banker at Lehman, will join Barclays Capital in London. He reports to Richard Boath, head of FIG. Lorenzo Frontini who spent 11 years at Lehman, mostly in syndicate, before moving in June to run Italian FIG DCM, has moved to a similar position at Deutsche Bank. He reports to Renato Grelle, who runs Italian DCM.

The government guarantee packages established across Europe will have serious implications for covered bonds. Few have followed Germany’s example of using the guarantee’s language to implicitly protect the Pfandbrief market, and while some explicitly include covered bond issues, others explicitly leave them out. Still others have yet to confirm the treatment of covered bonds either way. The speed with which the packages have been put together means that many details are yet to emerge.

The substantial help afforded financial institutions across the globe has failed to support spreads outside the financial sector. Corporate credit was responsible for the widening in both Europe’s iTraxx (Series 10) and the US CDX (Series 11) to 172bp and 225bp respectively – outside the previous wides seen in March. Confirmation that a global recession is on its way was the main factor driving the move.

But Barclays deal reprices agency sector.