Commerzbank Corporates and Markets is tackling the conundrum of how to finance the Mittelstand by setting up the first Schuldschein securitization programme. Commerzbank will pool the two- to five-year, €500,000 to €5 million funding needs of different small and middle-size German enterprises to create securitizable portfolios. It launched the origination phase on July 8, and expects the first ABS issues next year.

Global M&A volume was up 39% to $1.4 trillion in the first half of the year. However, revenues only increased 13%, further evidence of the fact that M&A advisory is not the guaranteed meal ticket it used to be.

In buying MBNA at the end of June, Bank of America pulled off a headline-grabbing deal. At $35 billion in stock and cash, it's the second-largest financial services deal since JPMorgan Chase bought Bank One last year and the second-largest deal overall this year after Procter &Gamble's purchase of Gillette. It was brokered largely by BoA chairman and CEO Kenneth Lewis, who in a matter of days stole one of the most prized monoline credit card companies from under the noses of such rival banks as Wachovia.

Citigroup's TreasuryVision is answering the challenge of putting PepsiCo's disparate global cashflows, emanating from 1,000 bank accounts, on a real-time system.

"I believe it is an obligation, for those of us who have a career, to defend it and serve the country"

Managers seek better returns in increasingly influential asset class

"£875m for The Priory! Why buy it? Maybe they have a view on the secular growth in the bulimic market"

A neat theory has it that long-term interest rates are stubbornly low because of excess savings in Asia. But the Federal Reserve can't get off the hook that easily

Four hundred of the biggest names in the capital markets gathered at the Natural History Museum in London last month for the annual Euromoney Awards for Excellence dinner. Juan Manuel Cendoya, executive vice-president of Santander, and Lord Burns, chairman of Abbey, came to see Santander take the Best Bank 2005 title. A vocal contingent from Lehman Brothers (Investment Bank of the Year) also made its presence felt.

The Italian state's packaging of a fund of official property confirms the treasury's reputation for innovation

EU directive misses the mark

Investors bemoan high hedge fund fees

It has been a glorious first half of the year for global structured finance, with volumes outperforming the plain vanilla universe for the fourth year in a row. The total rocketed up by more than a quarter, to $1.2 trillion from $944.6 billion during the first half of 2004.

But credit tranche activity has held up despite the GMAC fallout

There should be no false patriotism over whether it is appropriate to finance outside the domestic currency

The German bank has nothing to lose

Sooner or later credit tiering will return to a structured credit market that for too long has failed to reflect differentiation in the underlying assets, deals' performance or servicer record. That's the theory anyway. Recent events, though, suggest that spreads and market sentiment remain remarkably resilient to all but the worst news. When non-conforming residential mortgage-backed securities market leader Kensington Group unveiled disappointing performance data and the use of the reserve account on RMS 15 & 16 it had an immediate impact.

Spanish borrowers pay fees shock

Why an acquisition pays rich dividends

Unsecured debt markets are still open for GMAC and Ford

Online information provider is proving to be a big hit

Banks seek more tools to serve growing asset management clientbase on FXall

End of an era

The squeezing of grandfathered covered bonds last month has left issuers pondering how they can guarantee the liquidity of their product

Was it Abbey that prompted the Bank of Spain to level the playing field?

The CME and CBOT look to be the most likely candidates for a tie-up, despite their long-standing rivalry

As cross-border acquisition grows, global banks must establish the right local presence

Global consultancy and software provider Anvil has seized the opportunity to become the first company to design a cross-asset margining tool. In essence, the new system, dubbed Anvil Margin, will help traders, middle offices and back offices to manage collateral more effectively by operating on a multi-asset class basis. "This new product has been driven by emerging trends in the industry," says Phil Buck, CEO of North America at Anvil. "Market participants are becoming far more focused on cross-asset margining, for the simple reason that it's more efficient."

Bank of America grows FX sales force

Most surprising acquisition of the month