"Many banks have gone to considerable lengths in recent years to disclose more information about their risks, but the fact remains that investors tend to see banks as opaque black boxes where risks are still poorly disclosed or – worse – actively obscured by management"
Christian Stracke, managing director and global head of credit research at Pimco, underlines why there is a degree of distrust among investors of banks’ senior management, something which capable chairmen need to rectify (see The rise of the activist chairman)
"My single greatest concern is that [CEE countries] don’t put in place the policy frameworks that attract back the money and that leaves them [stuck in] a ‘low-level equilibrium’"
Sir Suma Chakrabarti, the new president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, voices his concerns about economies of emerging Europe suffering should global growth start to pick-up (see EBRD: Chakrabarti steps up to the challenges)
"In a scenario where it gets a lot better from here – the US moves beyond the fiscal cliff discussion and the US economy starts growing; China doesn’t slow quite as drastically as the market expects; and Europe holds together – then I can envisage money flowing out of fixed-income and back into the equities"
Jim Esposito, head of the financing group for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Goldman Sachs, warns that the bull-run in fixed income could hit the buffers in 2013 should a number of factors fall into place (see Outlook: Cautious optimism prevails in harsh macro-risk environment)