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"Putting an idiot in a suit doesn’t make him a private banker"

Institutions accustomed to doing business with the Gulf from afar are now facing up to the need to have a presence in the region and deciding on what scale that presence should be.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation recently issued a statement laying the foundations for the regulation of a US covered bond market, specifically concerning the preferred treatment of bondholders in the event of an issuer default.

In 2004 Santander had looked at ABN Amro as an entire business but decided it was not interested in a deal. Botín told his board at the time that the only parts of ABN that Santander might be interested in were its Brazil and Italy operations.

Finance sector ECM Banks and agencies raised $108.5 billion via 81 deals globally in the second quarter of 2008, up from $32.9 billion via 49 deals in the first quarter of the year, and year-to-date issuance already surpasses the total amount raised in 2007 ($100.8 billion). ECM issuance by financial sector issuers accounted for 42% of all global issuance in the second quarter and 26% in the first quarter. Royal Bank of Scotland’s $24.3 billion rights issue via Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and RBS is the largest ECM deal on record.

The bad news has been piling up at HBOS, but we shouldn’t call in the movers just yet.

The strong performance of BBVA and Santander can’t mask the impact of a looming housing crash on domestic institutions.

Family disputes in Asian listed companies have an unfortunate propensity to boil over unresolved into the public arena, raising important corporate governance issues.

HBOS is struggling. That’s why its stock price is depressed and its rights issue came close to disaster.

Panic over the state of Fannie and Freddie may have been overplayed, but more transparency over their role in US housing should be welcomed.

The audience fell silent as they listened to his advice: don’t buy things you don’t understand; if you wouldn’t buy something, don’t sell it to anyone else; and don’t lend money to customers you don’t know.