December 2018

December 2018

The Trump administration has begun the process of ostracizing Iranian finance. Bankers there are hanging on to some rare good news, but how long will it be till they are back to square one?

Euromoney's feature on Hillhouse Capital lifts the lid on a style of investment that we all need to understand more clearly.

The continent is implementing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to boost intra-regional trade, economic growth and industrialization, but can 54 countries overcome so many obstacles and ratify the agreement?

The corporate titans that have dominated Hong Kong’s economy for decades are slowly handing over the reins of power to the next generation, but will they prove as loyal to international investment banks as their parents have been?

Bankers believe that Vivo Energy’s dual listing in May has opened the taps on the IPO pipeline in Africa, but with primary equity markets suffering globally, is the continent really an exception?

Capital markets could be in for a bumper year in Brazil in 2019, with bankers hoping that a strong economic inheritance and a market-friendly policy agenda will prompt a jolt of activity.

Developments in the Gulf’s markets are increasingly being driven by the presence of Asian – and especially Chinese – banks, so no wonder rival financial centres in the region are competing for a bigger slice of the pie.

Over the last two years, Bank of America has been overhauling its low-to-moderate income business, redesigning branches and products, improving employee retention and working with community partners, but will the bank get the credit its actions deserve?

It is worth over $50 billion and its deals are among the most important and influential in Asia, it is at the vanguard of Chinese private equity and yet it talks to nobody, but market participants in Asia and beyond need to understand it. What goes on inside Hillhouse?

The amount of dry powder that private equity firms now have means they are sometimes putting even more than 50% equity into deals – it’s a huge cushion that is contributing to reckless lending behaviour in the debt markets. But are lenders taking too much comfort from a buffer that could rapidly disappear?

A string of jumbo strategic corporate deals made 2018 one of the busiest years ever in M&A, but falling equity markets, slowing economies, rising debt costs and geopolitical uncertainties have now dimmed the outlook severely. M&A bankers hope that private equity buyers, with $1 trillion of equity to put to work, will pick up the baton and that activist investors will stop corporate executives from quietly jamming those takeover and disposal plans back into the freezer.

Jon ‘Mystic Mac’ Macaskill looks ahead at possible highlights for markets in 2019.

While others race for scale in the region, Société Générale has become the first of the big regional groups to dismantle its network voluntarily.

Thirty-year mortgages on houses in cyclone, wildfire, flood and drought zones? Systemic risk is building.

A new, unique end-to-end transaction reference is a big step forward in tracking cross-border payments, identifying hidden costs and improving payment speeds.

Two borrowers beat US pressure by tapping into demand with euro and renminbi sales.

UniCredit's CEO puts his money where his mouth is.

Sweden’s Handelsbanken was the perfect antidote to investors burned by the pre-2008 bubble, but investors are no longer so enamoured of its consistent strategy.

Analysts are reflecting uncertainty over the fallout for Goldman Sachs from the 1MDB affair, but with the stock taking a rare tumble below book value, markets seem to be pricing in much more bad news to come.

Bulk up, or leave it to those with the finances and the commitment to the region to see if they can make a success of it.

There's one way to get to the top – rubbish those who came before you.

The Italian bank has bought some time with the ECB, but what it really needs is a white knight.

Concerns over president-elect Amlo could see investors rethink their Mexico exposure.

Slovenian, Kazakh governments deliver on privatization promises, while price concerns scupper listing plans of Belarusian retailer Eurotorg.

The fund is deploying $1 billion of the Chinese group’s money into digital medicine and fintech around the world, but profit is not its main ambition.

Mettle starts digital-bank spawn from leading UK lenders; new IT system to enable more user-friendly design.

New African Capital Partners’ (NACP) first investment target is a large, regional banking group, co-founder Charles Kie tells Euromoney in his first interview since the launch.

Investors worry that volatility in Italian government bond prices may leave some Italian banks needing to raise capital just as the markets close to them.