Row over charges for trades routed through execution system.

Commerzbank has hired Julien Mareschal as its new head of ABS trading and David Hoffman as a senior trader on the ABS team. Mareschal ran ABS trading at BNP Paribas, where he was responsible for ABS/MBS and cash CDO trading. Hoffman joins the team as senior trader with a special focus on developing Commerzbank’s ABS derivatives business.

Bank of America has appointed Derek Dillon and Doug Baird as co-heads of global equity capital markets, replacing Ciaran O’Kelly, who was named co-head of global equities in June, a role he shares with Peter Forlenza. Dillon and Baird are both based in New York and report to Forlenza and O’Kelly as well as Bill White, the global head of capital markets.

Two MBS transactions have become the Gulf region’s first internationally rated securitizations.

Dealers are hoping a new-look contract will finally get the European leveraged loan credit default swap market off the ground.

Latin American mutual funds are the best performers in the world year-to-date according to fund tracker Morningstar,which reports rises of 32.26% for the first half of 2007.

This month’s plans for a Latin American regional bank hit the rocks as Brazil raised objections to president Hugo Chávez’s plans for the bank.

Financial sponsors turn attention to the region.

In July, Credit Suisse announced that it had finally been allowed back into investment banking in India by local regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India. The new merchant banking licence permits Credit Suisse to undertake securities underwriting and corporate finance in what has been one of Asia’s most active markets in the past two years.

Albania has finally secured a credit rating in a move that the authorities in Tirana hope will help boost the Balkan republic’s investment profile with international investors. Moody’s Investors Service assigned a Ba1 country ceiling for foreign-currency bonds and a B1 issuer rating to the government. Moody’s also awarded a B2 foreign-currency bank deposit ceiling along with a local-currency country ceiling of A3 and a local-currency bank deposit ceiling of Baa1. All ratings carry a stable outlook.

Environmental, social and governance issues are increasingly prominent with regard to investment management in emerging markets. However, does taking a principled approach to portfolio construction offer the opportunity for greater returns, or leave investors with one hand tied behind their backs?

ABN Amro is embroiled in its own M&A battle but that has not stopped the bank’s investment banking arm closing some landmark deals for clients.

Michael Reich, a Harvard MBA student, has come up with a way of tapping into investment talent to run a fund. Reich has set up a website, www.theupdown.com, where keen investors, either students or professionals, can run virtual portfolios, and submit investment research in a competitive environment.

Structured product providers were last month encouraged to conduct "know your distributor" approval processes in order to ensure that only appropriate distributors be allowed to pass on complex derivatives-based investment products to the retail and high-net-worth markets.

The 2007 Italian national budget law outlines a new framework for the country’s regional healthcare administrations. The law’s purpose is to force each region with a large deficit in its healthcare funding to formulate and implement a recovery plan. "The national budget for 2007 represents a positive step forward in finalizing a set of rules for Italian healthcare," says Simone Zampa, senior analyst at Moody’s. "It aims to make regions more responsible and more accountable."

Bank of America has carried out a "functional alignment" of its FX business to drive what it says is greater collaboration across its global rates, currencies and commodities businesses. These are managed overall by Richie Prager. As part of the alignment, Gerhard Seebacher has been named head of trading for all GRCC products. Chris Mandell continues as head of currencies and local markets and has also been named head of sales for GRCC, a newly created position.

But there are signs that the supply of suitable targets is contracting.

London Stock Exchange takes on Euronext with launch of dedicated market.

With the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Continuous Linked Settlement Bank (CLS) fast approaching, the Bank for International Settlements committee on payment and settlement systems has issued a reminder to the market that further progress can still be made to reduce settlement risk.

China study dispels misconceptions about performance.

The UK Treasury has presented its proposals for a covered bonds legislative framework. The UK’s unregulated, structured covered bond market is the largest in the world of its type but suffers alongside regulated markets such as those in Spain and France through not being compliant with the Ucits directive. The new proposals, when implemented, will do away with this disparity, halving the risk weighting of UK covered bonds to 5%.

Independence day for Walsh: The WeeklyFiX

The recent contraction of liquidity has changed the landscape.

Only four years ago, the kind of research familiar to more developed capital markets was almost unknown in the Middle East. However, the quality of information available to investors is improving rapidly as global banks establish footholds. But Saudi Arabia, the region’s biggest market, has been left behind. Dominic O’Neill reports.

Dresdner Kleinwort has become a victim of its own success in central and eastern Europe, says a source at the bank explaining why the firm has been hit by a series of departures in recent months.

Asset manager New Star has seen significant growth in its alternatives business. In the second half of 2006, the firm raised more than $550 million for two hedge funds. In May this year, it launched a European opportunities hedge fund, which has now about $100 million in assets under management. In the last quarter of this year, New Star will be launching a property hedge fund. Robin White, of Rock Capital, is joining to head the fund.

When Stan O’Neal spoke at the Euromoney Forum in London in late June, concerns about the fallout from the sub-prime correction were at their height. In a wide-ranging interview with Euromoney’s editor, Clive Horwood, Merrill Lynch’s chairman and chief executive discussed the market’s reaction to sub-prime, and whether or not the contagion would spread.

The sub-prime contagion has now reached as far from the USA, geographically, as it possibly can: Australia. In July Basis Capital, arguably the best-known home-grown hedge fund manager in the southern hemisphere, ran into serious trouble after defaulting on margin calls to several of its creditors. At the time of writing its survival was in the balance.

Goldman Sachs has appointed Chris Barter and David Schwimmer as joint CEOs of its Moscow office. Barter was previously co-head of the European financial institutions group in London at the bank. He will relocate to Moscow by the end of the summer. Schwimmer was head of investment banking for Russia and central and eastern Europe. He is already based in Moscow. Goldman received its first Russian securities brokerage licence last year and, according to observers, is hiring aggressively across all products

The investor revolt in the leveraged loan market during June and July was long overdue and much needed. But have the excesses of the past few years left the LBO market teetering on the precipice of a far more serious credit squeeze? Louise Bowman reports.