BTA Ipoteka became the first Kazakh bank to issue a securitization of residential mortgage loans in the international public markets.

Will AgriBank be an IPO too far?

Citadel Investment Group is reportedly set to market its middle-office and back-office hedge fund expertise to its peers from May, and is aiming at becoming one of the top 10 administrators within five years. Citadel Solutions was set up as a subsidiary earlier this year. According to news website Chicago Business, the business has the capacity to execute two to three times the 20 million trades that Citadel handles each quarter.

Press reports that hedge funds will be the hardest hit by the sub-prime mortgages free fall in the US have been proved wrong by Paulson and Co. According to sources, the $7 billion merger arbitrage and event-driven hedge fund has produced 100% net returns year to date, and 60% in February alone on the back of sub-prime bets.

Focus should be on monetary and wage policy, says Redrado.

Ukraine is the latest emerging market in which asset-backed securities are being issued, with both international and domestic transactions appearing in recent weeks.

Richard Price is moving from UBS to Dresdner Kleinwort to take on the role of head of equity sales, based in London. He has spent 18 years at UBS in a variety of roles including head of institutional sales for Australasia, head of pan-European equity sales North America and, most recently, head of pan-European sales into the UK.

Bankers’ growing interest in environment-friendly financial opportunities can only be a good thing – whatever their motivation.

The equities business at leading investment banks is booming, according to a report from the Boston Consulting Group.

Abu Dhabi investment vehicle builds global partnerships.

More real estate companies have come to the market in the past two months than in the past two years.

Too many banks are chasing too few fees.

Cross-border activity to increase, say participants.

The sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US will feed through to mortgage markets elsewhere as share prices plummet and borrowing costs soar.

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Deutsche Bank, in conjunction with VTB Bank Austria and VTB Bank, has launched the first rated CDO of CIS corporates.

For the funds, there are lots of advantages: diversification of funding sources; the ability to invest in less-liquid opportunities; and the power to raise more AUM. But do investors understand what they are buying? Helen Avery reports.

Industry-owned utility ponders fundamental change to business model.

With gross public debt more than 170% of GDP and domestic investors increasingly diversifying overseas, the country is keen to attract foreign investors, even as it struggles to reduce government bond issuance and stave off roll-over risk. Hiroshi Watanabe, Japan’s vice-minister of finance for international affairs, speaks to Peter Lee about Japan’s funding policy and broader economic prospects.

Asian private banks are continuing to visit the wilder shores of alternative investments. Chris Wright reports.

Havens Advisors’ hedge funds focus on merger arbitrage, high-yield bonds and distressed debt. Helen Avery speaks to founder Nancy Havens about the opportunities in high-yield.

In recent years success in the financial services industry has been predicated on two main strategies: first, taking on significant if not massive proprietary risk, a strategy as old as the hills; second, underwriting risk positions and using the capital markets to exit. This is an even more well-established feature of the most successful investment banking operations.

Latin American markets have proved to be a fine investment in recent years, although not, it seems, for Mexican private pension fund managers. Pension funds, afores as they are locally known, are coming under increasing scrutiny for failing to provide the kind of stellar returns posted in Chile and Peru, despite new freedoms to diversify investments.

The inflation-linked bond market has grown dramatically in size and sophistication. What is driving its expansion, and just how far can the market develop?

Big hires, new local offices and investment in a specialist hedge fund show the US firm is getting serious about the emerging markets.

The influence of Basle II is starting to be felt in UK mortgage lenders’ funding plans.

Asian investors still love property, despite the tight spreads.

There was a flurry of activity in the FX employment market in March as those market participants who got bonuses banked their cheques.

"He’d been my client for 30 years, and he invited me down to see him at his home in Florida. When I got there he had assembled his entire family – wife, children, grandkids, the lot. I sat down. He handed me a letter and asked me to read it out loud to the room. It said simply: ‘Dear Bob, In the event that I should pass away, please tell my wife exactly what she needs to do, and ensure that she does it’"

Despite encouraging news from Bank of America, most US mortgage providers have so far remained aloof despite investor enthusiasm for covered bonds. Jethro Wookey reports.