"Starting as managing director with Christine Lagarde’s background is not an advantage at this point...There are arguments to say there should be some distance between the region concerned and the people who have to decide how the fund deals with it"

While financial journalists must generally be condemned to work in the dark, labouring against the efforts of PR officials, the misleading comments of sources and the inherent opacity of the banking industry itself, occasionally mere chance shines a light where hours of diligent endeavour cannot.

Banker A: "Do you work in the communications department?"

It was good of Deutsche Bank to wait until after the conclusion of the first match of the Test series between England and India before announcing Anshu Jain’s appointment as co-chief executive of the bank from next May. Jain is well known for his love of cricket and even wrote a piece on the subject for Newsweek in the build-up to the World Cup earlier this year. (Cricket and banking: Jain keeps his eye on the ball, Euromoney March 2011)

As the sovereign debt crisis grinds on, the world’s top credit analysts are having to adapt to the needs of their firms’ biggest clients. Valentina Zarya reports.

More than 500 people gathered at the Brewery in London on July 7 to receive their awards – and help raise almost £600,000 to build a school in one of Africa’s biggest slums.

It was a case of mistaken venue for a US-based capital markets head invited to Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence dinner in July when he found himself at a "dodgy pub" down an alley in East London instead of The Brewery corporate venue in the City. The pub with a similar name is in the East End of London, the former stomping ground for the notorious Kray Twins, who ran an organized crime racket in the 1950s and ’60s and were responsible for the murder of "Jack the Hat" McVitie. "I realized pretty quick that I had got the wrong ‘Brewery’," the banker said. "It was not the sort of place you wanted to stand around in a tuxedo."

Results based on only the opinions of the world’s largest asset managers by AUM.

Total Derivatives’ 2011 interest-rate derivatives rankings were surveyed in the midst of a choppy, troubled market in which inflation-linked products have come to the fore and concerns about regulatory demands remain prominent. Mark Ramsden reports.

Investment banks’ revenues in Japan are down by a third this year. But the March tragedy has accelerated Japanese companies’ plans to expand offshore, with outbound M&A at record levels. For both groups, it is time for a make-or-break strategic rethink. Lawrence White reports from Tokyo.

The Bank of Israel governor tells Dominic O’Neill why he was disqualified from the IMF managing director short list, and discusses the challenges that the institution and new appointee Christine Lagarde face.

The sector is enjoying substantial growth in assets, but converting this into profitability is a challenge, partly because of clients’ preference for low-fee, fixed-income products. And high interest rates are holding back growth in equity markets.

Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer’s bid to be managing director of the IMF might have been successful, had the position been awarded on merit alone. Euromoney spoke to Fischer the day after the IMF announced it had selected Christine Lagarde.

Regulatory criticism of synthetic and levered ETFs might force asset managers out of these products altogether. The bigger risk is that it tarnishes the entire trillion-dollar ETF industry. Louise Bowman reports.

Trust has broken down between IPO vendors and issuers and traditional investors in new stock offerings in Europe. Deal arrangers seem incapable of bridging the valuation gap between the two sides. In bloody markets, hedge funds have been the buyers of last resort but some have wreaked havoc on the IPO process. The only thing all sides agree on is that something needs to change. Peter Lee reports.

Cordiant Capital is at the vanguard of private loans, a small but increasingly important investment class in the emerging markets. Sudip Roy reports.

If the Obama administration and the rating agencies are to be believed, the US is looking down the barrel of its first ever default. Yet yields on treasuries continue to set new lows and the dollar remains relatively stable. This paradox reflects the fact that investors don’t yet believe the hype about the consequences of a ceiling breach. Joti Mangat reports.

Sovereign stress might limit refinancings; Covenant threat from revolvers

The biggest issue hindering the growth of the Gulf’s debt capital markets is the lack of a thriving local institutional investor community, says the head of the region’s leading fixed-income trade body.

Loan write-off legislation delayed; Banks “too cautious”, analysts allege

A lengthy, post-stimulus grind of deleveraging is the most likely model for the world economy in the immediate future. This heralds some years of balance-sheet restructuring.

JAL re-listing seen as likely market catalyst; Nikko AM and Nexon other possible listings

Potential market hit hard; Market impetus moves to investor pull

Opening for business in Peru; Expects to grow on Lima exchange

Fitch Ratings has withdrawn yet more individual ratings for Asian banks, in what appears to be a definite change of strategy for the agency.

Growth exceeds expectations; Chinese authorities slowly loosen capital controls

Under pressure on interest rate policy; A critic of growing government debt

Record outflows in June; Leveraged loans hold firm