Retail FX provider FXCM has launched a new platform, Active Trader, which it says is aimed at the higher end of the market. The platform has greater depth of book transparency and, unlike most other retail offerings, charges commission, determined by volumes, to trade. FXCM says this enables it to pass on tighter spreads from its liquidity providers. Accounts will require minimum deposits of $25,000 or a history of active trading.

Dan Condon has joined Standard Chartered as e-channels product manager in Singapore. Condon was previously vice-president, sales, at FXMarketSpace. Meanwhile, sources say Jens Andersen has left his role at Morgan Stanley in New York, where he was head of Americas trading for FXEM. He is believed to be going to Caxton.

The huge fraud underlines the crucial role of hedge fund administrators and independent prime brokers. An SEC that’s more au fait with hedge funds would also help. Neil Wilson reports.

It is not all bad news at Royal Bank of Scotland. At least its Saudi franchise is improving, which might ultimately fetch the troubled UK bank a higher price if it decides to sell the stake it inherited from ABN Amro.

The CME is expanding its international incentive programmes, which also cover FX products. The programmes will include a simplified fee structure and run until December 31 2010.

Can this year be any worse for IPOs? 296 is the number of IPOs withdrawn or postponed in 2008; $1.1 billion is the amount raised from the seven IPOs completed in the US during the second half of 2008, with the $145 million offering by Grand Canyon Education being the only US deal to price in the fourth quarter of 2008, when global IPO revenues to bank arrangers slumped 98% compared with the fourth quarter of 2007. Bankers aren’t enthusiastic about IPO prospects for 2009 but at least the annual comparisons are going to be easier.

Paulson & Co and Hong Kong financial group Sun Hung Kai Financial are to launch a distressed asset investment fund that will focus on financial companies.

Consolidation among investment banks has had a big impact on the equity capital markets league table results in 2008 and will do so again in 2009.

Analysts debate just how clued up Trichet and the council are to the problems of the real world.

Key numbers from the equity capital markets in 2008 include $257.4 billion, the value of equity raised by financial sector issuers, accounting for 41% of total ECM volume of $634.4 billion. That’s up from just 11%, the financial sector’s share of new issues in 2007. In 2007, total global ECM volume was $943.7 billion

This year is not set to be one of economic recovery – the financial assets that are cheap are cheap for a very good reason, and it’s not a propitious one.

Banco do Brasil has agreed to buy a 50% stake in Banco Votorantim for R$4.2 billion ($1.84 billion), much less than originally expected. Last year there were rumours that Banco do Brasil would buy 49% of Votorantim for R$6.5 billion. The combined entity will have R$553.3 billion in assets, R$275.7 billion in deposits and a credit portfolio of R$232.8 billion.

Sales of distressed real estate assets in Mexico could total more than $10 billion this year. “Mexico is very interesting at the moment,” says a local portfolio manager. “There are four big companies that are struggling that have big real estate portfolios in the country. Now there is an expectation that they will have to sell some of these assets.”

The UK Debt Management Office is canvassing market opinion on the merits of conducting gilt sales via supplementary measures such as mini-tenders, syndication and even direct placement of gilts with end investors. The size of the UK Treasury’s borrowing requirement led the DMO to consult its Gilt Edged Market Makers in a process that ended on January 28. The DMO is seeking to raise the supply of long-dated and index-linked gilts, in particular. In light of the high financing requirement of £143 billion ($194 billion), £147 billion and £135 billion for the next three years from 2009/10, the government’s medium-term strategy is to skew issuance to long-dated maturities. This strategy seeks to take advantage of strong actuarially driven demand at the long end from pension and insurance funds. The last UK syndicated gilt issuance took place in September 2005 when the DMO sold a £1.25 billion 50-year linker. That was a response to the poor auction outcome of a conventional 50-year gilt in May of that year. The results of the consultation will be announced at the time of the UK budget in March.

Premier Foods seeking approval for rights issue and placement.

Investors who supported those bank capital raisings may be regretting it already.

GLG Partners has taken on Kaveh Sheibani and Julian Harvey, two of the founders of London-based event-driven fund Pendragon. GLG will become the investment manager of the funds and accounts at Pendragon Capital.

Latin American sovereigns are on track to meet their 2009 financing needs after an impressive start to the year, according to senior debt bankers. Barclays Capital reckons that 34% of this year’s estimated total of $19 billion of emerging market sovereign issuance has already been successfully placed despite fears that the US and Europe would crowd them out. Latin American corporates, in contrast, are facing more difficult and expensive financing.

Russian fund group Da Vinci Capital Management has launched the marketing campaign for its latest investment vehicle. The CIS Private Sector Value Fund (PSVF) is designed to offer investors the chance to profit from the opportunities available in private equity in Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

With US president Barack Obama taking power last month, there were hopes that US-Venezuela relations would improve. Obama initially announced plans to talk to president Hugo Chávez but has since been reported as saying that Chávez exports terrorism, supports the Farc insurgents in Colombia and has obstructed progress in Latin America. "There is still time" for Obama to correct his views, Chávez says. He adds: "No one can say that I threw the first stone at Obama. He threw it at me." He concludes that Obama has the "same stench" as his predecessor, George W Bush.

Bill Schwab has been appointed global head of real estate at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia). Schwab joins from JPMorgan, where he was managing director of European real estate finance.

VTB, Russia’s second-biggest bank, announced worse-than-expected results for the third quarter after making a loss of $369 million following the doubling of its provisioning levels. Analysts at Nomura reckon that the biggest challenge facing VTB is that the equity capital of the bank declined by $1.5 billion in the third quarter alone. The bank’s chief financial officer has said that it needs to raise tier 1 capital and is hopeful that its minority shareholders will come to the rescue. In the third quarter, the bank’s capital adequacy ratio fell to 14% from 15.8%, although it’s still well above the Russian minimum level of 10%. The bank’s tier 1 ratio dropped to 12.7% from 14.4% in the second quarter.

A research report by Gulf Finance House raises the possibility of Kuwait going back to a dollar peg because of extreme volatility in the FX markets and to unfreeze its money markets. "Based on conversations with treasurers, the presence of FX risk premium is effectively imposing a barrier against the flow of funds from cheaper sources in the GCC to Kuwaiti banks," says the report. "Accordingly, dinar interbank rates remain the highest in the region, even after the recent moves of the Central Bank of Kuwait to activate repo facilities of 1% overnight and 3% one-month." Kuwait adopted a basket peg in May 2007 to contain inflationary pressures. The other GCC countries have their currencies pegged to the dollar.

Foreign exchange prime brokers and their exchange-traded product counterparts, the full commission merchants (FCMs), will be fully aware of the complexities involved in modern risk management. To an extent, the uptake of electronic trading has made their task far easier – there are clear audit trails, and trade confirmations are, in most cases, sent out in almost real time.

Credit Suisse has announced the formation of a new group in its EMEA global markets solutions business (GMSB) designed to address what co-head of global investment banking Jim Amine describes as a “unique opportunity” presented by the current debt market dislocation.

Cost savings accelerate move towards independent administrators.

According to analysts at JPMorgan, there is little certainty among all the doom, gloom and despondency in the financial markets. But although few people can confidently predict the outcome of the global financial crisis, JPMorgan believes it can be relatively sure that 2009 will be a year of less leverage and more regulation.

With the current scrutiny on budgets, it is inevitable that IT spending will come under some pressure. According to a recent report from consultancy Celent Communications: "Global information technology spending by financial services institutions will reach $358 billion in 2008." This is a 4.5% increase over 2007, but is, says the firm, "substantially lower than the 6.4% growth achieved in 2007. The financial crisis and economic uncertainty have financial institutions tightening their belts."

Downsizing in CLO, CDO, CSO; upscaling mortgage and ABS.

Yes, the share prices of RBS, Lloyds and Barclays have been crushed. The equity markets simply must adjust to banks' reduced status