A new series of private banking indices is to be launched this month, replacing those ABN Amro established in May.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is helping to develop securitization structures in central and eastern Europe. Sudip Roy reports.

Structured products are a hugely profitable business line for investment banks. They allow banks to package up risks and pass them on to third parties in the form of an investment where the buyer may win or lose, but the seller always stands to gain.

Euromoney might have found the ultimate gift for the finance nerd in your family. An interesting posting on Ebay appeared just before the festive season – a white Fender Stratocaster guitar signed by well-known names in finance including Warren Buffett, George Soros and Bill Gross. The guitar had been shipped around the US for two months to be signed by 19 industry figures and was being auctioned by hedge fund manager Todd Harrison for charity.

India’s private banking industry is booming. Indians living abroad and at home want to invest in the domestic markets. This is providing opportunities for local and international private banks. Kautilya Shastri reports.

The economy minister’s ousting signals the end of an era.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi’s (NBAD) $850m floating rate note sold in December has set a new benchmark for the region’s issuers both in terms of size and spread.

Asia’s business community is never slow to spot a trend and real estate investment trusts are certainly hot news. A trickle from the pipeline of early Reit offerings in Singapore and latterly Hong Kong earlier in 2005 threatens to become a torrent of new issues in 2006 as the region’s property developers and investment banks line up to launch new vehicles for Asia’s yield-voracious investors.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported record FX volume on December 12. A total of 872,271 futures and option contracts were traded, representing $96 billion in notional value. This was 16.6% up on the previous record of 748,050 contracts, set on June 8 2005. Electronic transactions on the exchange’s Globex platform accounted for 71% of the turnover. Even though calendar rolls into the March contract inflated the total, if the CME can maintain levels at anywhere near the record, the debate on whether or not FX can migrate to an exchange-traded environment will grow louder.

Fitch has cut Hungary’s sovereign credit rating to BBB+ from A–, one of the first times that a new EU member state has had a downward, rather than upward, rating movement applied to it since the EU enlargement process began.

China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corporation (CAO) the Singapore-listed subsidiary of mainland Chinese aviation fuel importer China Aviation Oil Holding Company (CAOH) announced in December a successful debt restructuring including significant investments from BP Investments Asia and Temasek Holdings.

“OK, if there were a big credit event, and if it coincided with one of the dealers going down, there would be a problem. How many ‘ifs’ do they want?”

In an historic move in late November, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, conducted the first ever swap of renminbi with the US dollar, a move that it intends to repeat fortnightly.

With just weeks to go before the SEC’s new hedge fund regulation comes into force, its legitimacy has been questioned by a federal appeals court. Philip Goldstein has been challenging the rule in court, arguing that the regulator does not have the power to alter or make law [see Euromoney March 2005]. Although it was widely supposed that Goldstein’s complaints would go unnoticed, judges in the case last month questioned whether the SEC had overstepped its authority. A decision is expected in two months.

Greece’s economy grew faster than expected in 2005. But its government faces a major challenge in 2006: to maintain its strong growth rate while complying with the EU directive to cut its budget deficit by the end of the year. By Dimitris Kontogiannis.

Thailand faces a looming pensions crisis. Its government is already moving down the path of reform but its critics don’t like the direction in which the programme is headed. Chris Leahy reports from Bangkok.

Excitement over corporate hybrids has been replaced by hopes of a boom in M&A refinancing.

Weak execution caused by the end-of-year rush to issue was mostly limited to the CMBS sector. Execution lower down the capital structure suffered the most, with triple B notes hitting three-month Euribor plus 100 basis points, a level not seen for more than 18 months.

In December, the UK’s Financial Services Authority held a meeting with the Association of British Insurers setting out its position on securitization and reinsurance for life insurers. All year there had been talk of monetization being a big story. Legal and General has been rumoured to have mandated a structuring mandate, and Standard Life was looking at both new business strain and value in force (VIF) structures before being overwhelmed with the process of demutualization. There has been talk of VIF securitizations coming from France and the Netherlands. However, some originators argue that the cost effectiveness of this approach is far from proved and question whether the six months or so spent working on structures is worth it. Also the competitiveness of reinsurance has improved dramatically in response to the capital market, especially for one-year maturity. But for a five-year maturity, a reinsurance treaty is twice as expensive as a capital markets solution. It appears that the FSA is trying to give greater guidance to issuers and arrangers on how to streamline the process; there are hopes for as many as four deals in 2006.

With the Bombay Sensex, India’s benchmark index, hitting new highs, it is perhaps not surprising that December saw India’s second largest ever equity deal and one of the biggest deals in Asia in 2005. Leading private sector bank ICICI Bank raised more than $1.5 billion from a local and American depositary share offering through Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

Tier 1 perpetual CMS-linked products, once in high demand from private investors, have shown their dark side. Some deals have lost 20% of their value. Their highly illiquid nature means investors could be left high and dry. How did these inappropriate products come to be sold to an unsuitable investor base? Alex Chambers and Helen Avery report.

Everyone seems to be making the decision to seek alpha in foreign exchange, but what does that entail? Leading figures in the FX market debate how to combine systematic and discretionary risk allocation, the importance of choosing the right managers, understanding volatility and whether or not the sell side has helped the transition to alpha.

Malaysian retail bank Southern Bank had its expansion plans scuppered in December by Bank Negara Malaysia, the country’s central bank, after BNM refused to approve Southern Bank’s proposed acquisition of Asia General Holdings, a Singapore general insurance company.

Stephan Theissing is the treasurer of Allianz as well as its head of corporate finance. He’s the man that investment bankers, looking for a share of the global financial group’s substantial capital markets activity, need to impress. Peter Koh finds out what they have to do to win his favour.

The bond market might have underestimated the troubled issuer’s ability to realize investment-grade ambitions.

Republic’s next challenge is to revamp its domestic debt portfolio.

Many of the most attractive banking assets in emerging Europe have already been bought. Acquirers must look further east for their next target. But investment bankers are already thinking of the next big play – a global bank trying to buy a presence across the region. Sudip Roy reports.

Last month’s cover story received a lot of feedback. It seems sell side is in a state of flux and running scared of algorithmic trading.

The Czech Republic’s PPF Group, which owns Home Credit and insurer Ceska Pojistovna, has managed to achieve top three positions in all of its countries of operation and with limited need for international financing. Now, the previously inwardly focused group has finally begun to let outsiders in. Kathryn Wells reports.

Nicolás Aguzín’s appointment as chairman of JPMorgan’s Latin American franchise heralds a new strategy in the region. Gone is the big picture approach; now the emphasis is on getting the nitty-gritty right and building long and lasting corporate relationships. Felix Salmon reports.