"If you don’t fully understand an instrument, don’t buy it. If you would not buy for yourself a specific product, don’t try to sell it. If you don’t know very well your customers, don’t lend them any money. If you do all these things, you will be a better banker, my son"

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation recently issued a statement laying the foundations for the regulation of a US covered bond market, specifically concerning the preferred treatment of bondholders in the event of an issuer default.

With returns of 27% over the past 12 months, vintage champagne investment is not to be sniffed at. The Liv-ex Champagne 25 index to the end of June outperformed even the leading fine wine index, the Liv-ex 100, which returned 8.5%. Since January 2004, the champers index has returned 138%. The best-performing champagnes, such as Krug, Cristal and Dom Perignon from the acclaimed 1996 vintage, are up by as much as 56% since last June. The rise in price is attributed to new wealth and new markets.

Professional cycling is a sport that has a long association with doping. In reality, it is probably no worse than any other and its fans will tell you it has done more to clean its tarnished image than those sports that are not regarded with such suspicion.

Barclays Capital has confirmed that Adrian McGowan is joining as managing director and head of foreign exchange trading, Asia-Pacific, from Deutsche Bank. It has also promoted Lutfey Siddiqi, its managing director and Asia-Pacific head of corporate FX and risk advisory, who now has additional management responsibility for distribution of the full suite of flow and structured FX products across corporate and investor clients in Asia-Pacific. Dean Tonkin, currently head of FX trading, Japan, and regional head of FX forwards, has also assumed additional regional responsibility for FX spot trading and FX proprietary trading.

"Putting an idiot in a suit doesn’t make him a private banker"

FXCM posts strong second-quarter revenues.

In 2004 Santander had looked at ABN Amro as an entire business but decided it was not interested in a deal. Botín told his board at the time that the only parts of ABN that Santander might be interested in were its Brazil and Italy operations.

It’s a year since the credit crunch began and still there is no end in sight to the bloodletting. Alex Chambers looks at the prospects for bankers facing this unprecedented downturn as traditional alternative employment avenues, such as hedge funds, struggle to pick up the slack.

Shinsei Bank has announced that it is to acquire General Electric’s Japanese consumer finance business for ¥580 billion ($5.4 billion). The deal comprises GE’s personal loans unit, Lake, as well as its mortgage loans and credit card arms, and will bring Shinsei more than 2 million new customers as it seeks to combine its consumer finance and retail operations.

It has always been a big contributor to investment banking profitability – and with credit derivatives in turmoil, the market’s importance is rising again. Total Derivatives, in association with Euromoney, polled the market to find out who is the best of breed in rates.

These tongue-in-cheek versions of common financial parlance are particularly insightful given recent market events.

The financing for Peru’s biggest ever project is in the final stages after a $3.8 billion package was signed last month.

At a difficult time for the global asset management industry, the GCC countries are increasingly attractive markets. The region’s oil and gas fuelled wealth and increasing investment sophistication offer huge opportunities. Regional financial centres equipped with world-class regulation and facilities provide the right environments for international firms to establish local operations, while the Shariah-compliant investment market is growing in popularity and diversity. Stuart Pearce, CEO of Qatar Financial Centre Authority, introduces this report.

As one Euromoney reader put it: “Macro has had more comebacks than Lazarus.” But is the strategy back to stay? – at least for three or so years, say managers.

Former GMAC chief executive Eric Feldstein has joined $13 billion hedge fund Eton Park as CFO; Jamil Baz, portfolio manager for Pimco’s global multi-asset fund, joins GLG as chief investment strategist; KKR has hired William Sonneborn, president and COO of TCW, to develop its asset management business.

The Merrill chief’s honeymoon is over. The question now is whether he’s guilty of misjudgment or mismanagement.

The bad news has been piling up at HBOS, but we shouldn’t call in the movers just yet.

The role of the European Central Bank as the saviour of the European securitization market over the last year is not even up for debate.

Family disputes in Asian listed companies have an unfortunate propensity to boil over unresolved into the public arena, raising important corporate governance issues.

HBOS is struggling. That’s why its stock price is depressed and its rights issue came close to disaster.

Panic over the state of Fannie and Freddie may have been overplayed, but more transparency over their role in US housing should be welcomed.

Governments should give investors what they need and issue inflation-linked bonds.

The audience fell silent as they listened to his advice: don’t buy things you don’t understand; if you wouldn’t buy something, don’t sell it to anyone else; and don’t lend money to customers you don’t know.

In-house hedge funds look to have been a costly mistake for investment banks. Far better, it seems, is to take stakes in independent ones.

Markets have changed and so will the terms for Mexico’s next round of toll road financing.

The strong performance of BBVA and Santander can’t mask the impact of a looming housing crash on domestic institutions.

Investors say the Middle East is becoming an interesting new territory for hedge fund managers, as opportunities in the region increase.

Finance sector ECM Banks and agencies raised $108.5 billion via 81 deals globally in the second quarter of 2008, up from $32.9 billion via 49 deals in the first quarter of the year, and year-to-date issuance already surpasses the total amount raised in 2007 ($100.8 billion). ECM issuance by financial sector issuers accounted for 42% of all global issuance in the second quarter and 26% in the first quarter. Royal Bank of Scotland’s $24.3 billion rights issue via Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and RBS is the largest ECM deal on record.