Despite widespread investor puts of pre-crunch extendible notes, the sector is experiencing a relatively good 2008, with investors calling the shots.

The financing of Nigerian energy company Oando’s acquisition of a 49.8% stake in two offshore oil blocks owned by Royal Dutch Shell was due to close at the end of March, according to Wale Tinubu, the company’s group chief executive.

"I’ve reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death – abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term ‘thinking outside the box’"

"Low sovereign default rate reflects buoyant global market conditions."

Any product that combines the words “catastrophe” and “securitization” is going to be a tough sell in this market. But insurance-linked securities are a rare sector of spread stability and growth in the credit world. Louise Bowman reports.

As part of plans to boost Moscow’s position as an international financial centre, the Federal Financial Markets Service has announced plans to exempt investment in securities from taxation. The proposal forms part of a strategy document covering the period to 2012. If approved, the FFMS proposal will come into force in 2009.

With big declines and huge daily swings, stock markets around the world looked even less welcoming to new issuers in March than they had for much of the year, during which time companies fearful of a cold reception had withdrawn or postponed more than $20.5 billion-worth of deals.

The stellar returns from reinsurance that lured in hedge funds in the wake of the 2005 hurricanes have dissipated. But this won’t deter managers with long-term strategic plans, reports Helen Avery.

There are signs that Venezuela is moving away from the plummeting dollar for some of its oil contracts. Energy minister Rafael Ramírez said last month that his country would insist on payments in euros on some contracts. Ramírez declined to give further details, although the move is bound to further damage relations with the US government. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has been critical of the Bush administration’s economic policy, blaming it for the dollar’s slump. He wants Opec members to move from pricing oil in dollars to a basket of currencies.

Despite reporting its first annual loss in 2007 and forecasts of further credit write-downs in the first quarter, Merrill Lynch is getting out the chequebook for its Latin American business. The firm has gone on a shopping spree and plucked the cream of the Latin American investment banking crop, especially in Brazil.

One characteristic that both the ABS and leveraged loan markets share – apart from having had a hideous time over the past nine months – is that fledgling indices for both (the ABX and LCDS/LevX respectively) have been subjected to the most testing market conditions in memory very early on in their development.

Brian Stevenson is the head of the new global transaction services division at RBS, following its acquisition of ABN Amro’s business. In his first interview since he took the job, he talks to Laurence Neville about separation, integration and what the future holds.

Since it launched its FXTrade platform in 2001, Oanda has carved out a reputation as an iconoclast and innovator in the foreign exchange industry. By making use of smart risk management tools, it has helped pioneer the delivery of tight spreads initially to retail customers but increasingly to institutions.

Abu Dhabi wants to be a global capital city: a pleasant hub for industry and high-class tourism. To attain that goal, it is looking for outside investment. But despite a stated desire for more independent business, the ruling family is still omnipresent.

Citadel Known to be taking full advantage of the carnage in the markets, Citadel is now launching a multi-strategy macro investment business to cash in on arbitrage and trading opportunities. Kaveh Alamouti has been hired from Moore Capital to run the business.

"The private equity party is over," says Kevin Dolan, chief executive of $5 billion fund of hedge funds La Fayette Investment Management in London. The credit crunch has made it difficult for private equity firms to take companies private, and that is good news for activist hedge funds, he claims.

Deutsche Bank’s global head of equity and derivatives trading, Noreddine Sebti, is packing his bags and ditching the Big Apple for Hong Kong, in a move that the bank says reflects Deutsche’s increasing focus on the Asia-Pacific region, which it expects to overtake Europe in terms of equity trading this year.

US investment bank Merrill Lynch has created a new infrastructure equities index, giving investors convenient access to the projected infrastructure boom in Russia.

Chatting with Ajith Cabraal, the amiable governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in his lofty eyrie above Colombo, one could be forgiven for thinking that he’s presiding over some approximation of a Switzerland-sur-tropique. Although his Indian Ocean homeland is besieged by a civil war escalated by an ambitious president with an advancing personality cult, "things aren’t nearly as bad as they might appear on CNN," Cabraal says.

Commodity prices continue to break records, defying the spectre of slowing growth in the US and the performance of other asset classes. With some commentators attributing the price rises to the billions being poured in by investors, is it boom or bubble? Peter Koh reports.

Investors looking for attractive long-term return potential could do worse than look at bank stocks in southeastern Europe. That’s the conclusion of a recent report by Günther Hohberger and Gernot Jarny, banking analysts at Erste Bank in Vienna. Entitled South east European Banks: Boom or bust? the report looked at the banking sectors in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia, and concluded that overall growth rates for banks in the emerging economies of southeastern Europe versus the more developed markets in central Europe will be higher for the next decade at least.

Don’t confuse a lack of deals with inactivity; allocations to private equity are set to rise.

Last month two interdealer brokers unveiled their participation as official venues for the trading of Dutch bonds.

A sign of the weak prospects for the European securitization business has been provided by Morgan Stanley’s aggressive cost-cutting. Ellen Brunsberg, head of the European securitized products group, is still at the firm but out of the 70-strong team, only 20 people now remain.

Brazil’s Banco Itaú plans to open a Tokyo branch of its securities subsidiary, Itaú Securities, in the autumn. The subsidiary will become the first securities firm from the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) to set up an operating base in Japan. The new branch will sell Brazilian stocks, bonds and other financial products to institutional investors.

But lenders will price to encourage trading.

Credit Suisse and Gulf Capital, one of the region’s biggest private equity firms, have announced an agreement in principle to launch a strategic alliance focused on investing in the Gulf and Middle Eastern economies. Karim El Solh, chief executive at Gulf Capital, says: "Of particular help to us will be Credit Suisse’s expertise in leveraged buyouts, its global footprint, its financial strength and award-winning debt and equity franchises in the Middle East."

Much is made of Ben Bernanke’s academic work on the Great Depression. However, the Fed chairman seems to making policy with one eye on the recent Japanese debt deflation cycle.

Last month Euromoney wrote about how the valuations service sector was heating up. Financial data provider Markit subsequently announced a new multi-dealer valuations platform. Chief executive Lance Uggla explains to Alex Chambers how the firm is broadening its offerings from credit to OTC equities.

If it’s a chilly wintry day in London, Ratan Tata must be in town buying classic-but-hoary old UK brands. In 2007, the Indian industrialist made headlines after overpaying (as Tata himself admitted) to snap up Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus for $12.9 billion. At the time, a banker involved with the deal remembered with a grimace the awful steel assets up for sale on the British side of Corus, noting that they were the worst he’d seen in a developed country in "a long, long time". Never mind: Mumbai-listed Tata Steel, the division that completed the Corus acquisition on January 31 2007 with the aid of a $2.66 billion bridge loan and $6.14 billion-worth of debt, saw its stock more than double in value in 2007 – although it has fallen back by a third this year, in line with the rest of the market.

Costs are rising in Asian private banking but the vast and untapped pools of wealth in the region mean that it is still a highly attractive business proposition. The adverse market environment will further reduce margins. However, on a long-term basis the opportunities are too good to miss. Helen Avery reports.

The covered bond market has not behaved in the way investors had been led to believe it would. It’s time to realize that covered bonds are not the golden child of the bond family.

Will the long-awaited recovery in the German real estate market be stopped in its tracks by turmoil in the debt markets? Louise Bowman reports.

But CDO managers are paying a premium, especially in the US.

Highly levered funds are always at the mercy of credit and liquidity suppliers. So be wary of those active in markets where liquidity can rapidly dry up, says Neil Wilson.

Awash with cash that far exceeds domestic investment opportunities, Australia’s pension funds are continuing to expand their holdings in global and alternative assets, developing an expertise paralleled by that of the country’s banks. Chris Wright reports.

First Avenue Partners, a hedge fund advisory firm based in New York and London, is raising money for a new multi-strategy fund of hedge funds investment vehicle that will focus on Brazilian managers. The fund, which will be managed by Brazilian investment boutique Arsenal Investimentos, plans to raise $300 million.

Banco Santander in Brazil has named Banco Real chairman Fabio Barbosa as the new head of the Spanish bank’s businesses in Brazil. Barbosa will take up this new role when Banco Real is legally separated from ABN Amro. Gabriel Jaramillo, the current country head of Santander in Brazil, will "provide advice and support to the office of the chairman of Santander". Jaramillo’s post will be filled temporarily by Jose Paiva until Barbosa takes over the combined operations.

A merger of BNP Paribas and Société Générale would be difficult to fund and to execute.

If Japan’s property bubble has already expanded and popped, China’s might be close to bursting.

Even given its tumultuous history, the past few months have been especially volatile in Pakistan, highlighted by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. From a financial perspective, the country faces several problems, in particular rising inflation. Shamshad Akhtar, governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, tells Sudip Roy why, despite this, she is confident about the nation’s medium-term prospects.

Accusations of sharp practice are flying as the loan market struggles to deal with its problems.

Far from solving BAA’s financial problems, the CAA’s regulatory review will make life for it even worse.

RBC Capital Markets is building a European leveraged finance team.

India’s nascent and relatively isolated financial markets have been spared the worst of the credit crunch but leading corporates are feeling the squeeze in other ways.

Even though spreads for most foreign exchange products are often so thin that they barely exist, the use of transaction cost analysis (TCA) to measure execution is on the increase.

The Dubai Multi Commodity Centre Authority, which is owned by the Dubai government, is buying a 4.99% stake in Shariah Capital. The two companies are also creating a joint-venture investment company that will develop Shariah-compliant commodity-linked investment products.

Thailand’s People Power Party government bears a close resemblance to Thaksin Shinawatra’s overthrown administration, and Thaksin is widely seen as its eminence grise. The government has big plans for infrastructure development but it is highly exposed to a contraction of US export demand and the potential for inflation. Eric Ellis reports.

With the public markets all but closed, issuers have turned to private and structured products to fulfil their requirements. Those who have maintained the best relationships with their investors and dealers have proved best able to ride out the turmoil, printing deals at half their CDS levels or better. Infrequent borrowers and those who have taken cheap funding for granted are in for a shock.

"It is an inauspicious year because the rat year brings about slower world economies where unemployment, money matters and environment matters would be the key issues. There would be plenty of natural disasters/diseases which could affect the world."

Twelve Wall Street firms are in the early stages of developing a single trading portal alliance platform, operated by Nasdaq, for all 144a securities. The companies hope the platform will bring liquidity and transparency to the 144a market, which has been associated with unregistered, opaque trading.

Local-currency debt markets in emerging economies are beginning to suffer from the credit crisis and broader global slowdown.

Its strength in emerging markets makes it a serious player in FX.

Spanish bank BBVA has announced plans to open a new platform in Brazil, following the sale of its 5.01% stake in Banco Bradesco.

All market participants must still confront the reality of near total market failure across the debt and money markets, an inability to sell even quality assets for cash or to borrow against them and a complete loss of faith between financial institutions. More public money is surely coming, but how can it repair this?

Rating agency considers wider implications of CDO methodology change.

Market participants say that the borrowing binge by Russian banks and corporates in recent years could come back to haunt them, given the much tighter credit market conditions in 2008.

Are banks biting the hand that feeds them? Perhaps, but what choice do they have?

Deutsche Bank is believed to have suspended two of its Italian FX sales team because of procedural irregularities. Sources say that Riccardo d’Antonio, the bank’s head of Italian FX sales based in London, and his subordinate, Santo Caristo, who was based in Milan, were told of the action in early March. Their suspension is believed to relate to a small loss incurred by one of their clients, which led to an abuse of the bank’s booking procedures. Deutsche and the Financial Services Authority, which held d’Antonio’s registration, decline to comment.