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"Go West", sang the Village People when encouraging listeners to seek utopia but bankers considering their career prospects might now be advised to go in the opposite direction. In what might be a sign of things to come, Credit Suisse has relocated two senior bankers to Asia, seeking to align top talent with areas of highest potential growth. First up is Vikram Gandhi, who has led CS to its position as the top M&A adviser to financial institutions (year-to-date) since he joined the firm in 2005. Gandhi, who moves from New York to Hong Kong, will continue in his role as head of the global financial institutions group. Before he joined Credit Suisse, Gandhi was head of FIG at Morgan Stanley.

Brazil plans a sovereign wealth fund.

Nasdaq OMX has chosen the European Multilateral Clearing Facility, run by Fortis, to be the clearer for the pan-European MTF that it plans to launch in September. Nasdaq OMX’s choice is a boost for EMCF, which also handles the clearing of rival pan-European MTF, Chi-X.

UK-based fund Brevan Howard has raised $1 billion in an IPO of its feeder fund, BH Global, double its original target. The fund will invest in five of Brevan Howard’s hedge funds. Canadian firm Sprott Asset Management also went public last month, with a $225 million IPO. It was the biggest IPO in Canada in the past five months.

Equity issuance volumes, especially IPOs out of Brazil, will pick up in the second half of the year, according to senior bankers in Latin America, after the credit crunch put a halt to the region’s four-year boom.

Focus Capital, a specialist emerging markets absolute return manager, has launched a fund of funds that invests across multiple asset classes.

It was all going so well. In the past three years the Philippines has been the poster child of emerging markets fiscal policy, turning a crippling deficit into an almost balanced budget. But having done all the hard work, its achievements might all be derailed, thanks to the soaring oil price and rising food prices.

NYSE-Euronext is capitalizing on regulatory convergence to show issuers some of the benefits that it had hoped its transatlantic merger might be capable of.

CLS adds shekel and Mexican peso...

Deutsche Securities Inc has announced Shunichi Maeda, previously deputy president at Lehman Brothers Japan, as its new vice-chairman of global banking for Japan. Maeda, a former Mitsubishi investment banking veteran who has also worked at the World Bank, has been brought on board primarily for his extensive contact network as well as his experience in banking.

In the face of global market turbulence, rising oil prices and rifts in the country’s rickety ruling coalition, Pakistan’s markets remain a rare sanctuary of stability for embattled investors and acquisitive foreign corporates.

Venezuela has negotiated a new loan agreement with several Japanese companies. The money is earmarked for the expansion of two oil refineries and the loans will be repaid in future oil production. This is not the first time Venezuela has relied on oil repayment – China is owed $4 billion in oil for a loan and PDVSA owes Japanese companies Mitsui & Co and Marubeni $3.5 billion in oil. Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister of Venezuela, said the money would be used to expand the El Palito and Puerto la Cruz refineries and increase their capacity to process heavy crude. Ramírez said: "Japanese companies are moving very aggressively, they want a position in Venezuela." He did not say which Japanese companies are involved in the deal but Japan is looking for ways to reduce its dependence on Middle East production. In 2007, Japanese refiners brought Venezuelan crude for the first time since the 1980s.