Sovereign borrowers

Fund management

M&A

Sovereign borrowers

Despite the continuing weakness of equity markets, institutional investment in hedge funds has grown only slowly.

Stock markets started 2003 in a relatively buoyant mood. The view seemed to be that the world economy would come out of a soft patch, that the Bush administration would deliver tax cuts that sustained US consumer spending and that war in Iraq would go smoothly and quickly, slashing oil prices.

The AKP’s hefty majority in Turkey’s November elections looked promising but indecision has taken a hold on the new government, not least in its commitment to the discipline required by the IMF.

Sovereign borrowers

The word from Paris is that BNP Paribas chairman and CEO Michel Pébéreau is more than a little distracted from his favourite pastime of reading science-fiction novels.

Sovereign borrowers

As investors cut back on corporate exposure, high-quality issuers are scooping up funding. Smaller ones can satisfy their needs with many bite-size deals rather than a few jumbos.

Sovereign borrowers

Lang Kwai Fong - the area in Hong Kong where you go to drink before you hit the really seedy bars - used to be a good gauge of how happy and confident expatriates were. According to an Australian banker, in the 1990s it was busy during the good times and quiet during the bad. These days, though, expats have changed their drinking habits.

Sovereign borrowers

Japan

Sovereign borrowers

General Hilmi Ozkok, Turkey's army chief of staff, last month expressed his displeasure at prime minister Abdullah Gul's interference in army policy towards Islamist officers. In a speech he made at the military's annual party for the media (Islamist journalists are not invited) Ozkok said Gul's attitude would "indubitably encourage those who got mixed up in recidivist [meaning Islamic fundamentalist] activities".

Sovereign borrowers

Toyota Motor Credit Corporation (TMCC), the wholesale and retail financing company that supports Toyota's North American sales activities, is unique among the big automotive companies' captive financing vehicles. It has a triple-A rating from Standard & Poor's and Aa1 from Moody's, far superior to those of its big three competitors, Ford Credit, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services and GMAC, the highest rated of which, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services, is on a low single-A.

ABB has had a rough 12 months. The Switzerland-headquartered power and automation technologies conglomerate was faced with the worst operating environment for its businesses in 20 years. It was making heavy losses and was also saddled with an increasing asbestos liability at US subsidiary Combustion Engineering.

Executives at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have pulled off what could turn out to be the most important coup in the institution's recent history. It's not the launch of their IPO in December, although that must count as a great success in itself given both the sheer effort of transforming from a mutual to a public company as well as going public in the toughest new issue market for decades.

Many of the futures commission merchants favour a model for the US futures business that is suspiciously similar to that employed in the US options market. It's a model, conversely, that the futures exchanges are keen to avoid, as they have seen what effect it has had on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Cades, the state-backed agency set up to pay off France's social security debt, has sizeable yearly funding needs and prides itself on the quality and regularity of the information it provides to the market.

Just which place could Sir David Walker have been talking about when he described a country as "Wogga Wogga"?

Issuer: Tyco InternationalSize: $.4.5 billion 144a convertible bondBookrunners: Morgan Stanley, Banc of America Securities, Citigroup

Fixed income

India inched its way closer towards full convertibility of the rupee early last month when finance minister Jaswant Singh unshackled foreign investment by Indian companies, mutual funds and investors. However, the fine print shows that the old control mindset of the Indian authorities has not changed.

Romania's publicity-friendly tourism minister, Dan Matei Agathon, is looking to give a lift to investment in the state-sponsored Dracula Park - a tourist trap inspired by the vampire. He plans to start trading Dracula Park shares on the Rasdaq exchange this month.

The IMF has come under heavy fire for its decision last month to roll over $6 billion it lent to Argentina. The republic has failed to implement or even promise any of the reforms the IMF considers necessary, say critics, and the Fund has lost credibility by caving in to the Argentines' blackmail tactics.

Perhaps he'd had a bad night's sleep. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue. Or perhaps the man who told us last June that we needed to buck up our standards in the wake of the corporate crises in the US simply wanted to tell the truth.