A new breed of fund manager is shaking up Japanese markets

Private-equity funds are uncovering new ways to invest in Africa

Hedge funds

Argentina: Dollar bond revival

Venezuela's president considers buying Ecuador bond

We have the tools to develop much more coherent and flexible financial markets. But it will only happen if a spirit of openness is maintained, says Philippe Buhannic.

Copenhagen is costly, but to great effect. Spend a bit, drink a bit and you'll end up enjoying a tradition of companionship, cosiness and conviviality. But Danes aren't inward-looking. They've stuck with their national currency, though many still favour regional integration.

Credit card bad loans to rise but business still highly profitable

The UK Debt Management Office has put a brave face on the disappointing response to its issue of 50-year gilts in mid-July. The DMO, in its second sale of these ultra-long bonds, sold £2.25 billion worth; but the sale drew bids of just 1.23 times the amount on offer, the smallest cover for any conventional gilt auction since the creation of the DMO in 1998. The DMO reintroduced the 50-year gilt in May after a break of more than 40 years. The result was particularly surprising in the light of the supposedly enormous gap between the supply of long-dated assets and the demand for them. Changes to pension fund regulation in Europe – Spain is the latest in a growing line of reformers – as well as increased pensioner longevity are forcing trustees to look hard at their asset/liability matching. In addition, there is a growing belief that the last 30 to 40 years, in which inflation has been high by historical standards and equities have been the logical asset in which to invest, have been some kind of blip.

Saudi Arabia: investment incentives

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"

Are the days of a CEO numbered? It's now estimated that the average period in office for FTSE 100 chief executives has fallen over the past 12 months to 4.6 years, according to on-line financial broadcaster Cantos. It's a worrying statistic when you look at stalwarts like Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP, who has been in office since 1986.

What price the prince?

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

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

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

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.

There were red faces all around at Taiwan broker Fubon Securities after it was forced to admit a mind-numbingly banal trading blunder that caused massive confusion in the stock market and left the firm nursing a loss of almost US$15 million.

Bank executives are paid well to do a good job. But they should not be rewarded for failure.

Doubts, though, emerge over portal's sustainability

BNP Paribas seen as probable buyer

Managers seek better returns in increasingly influential asset class

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.