New FX indices have been separately launched by the International Index Company (IIC), the company behind the successful iBoxx bond and iTraxx credit derivative indices, and JPMorgan.

In October 2006, Merrill Lynch raised $279 million to fund the leveraged buyout of Indonesian coal mining company PT Berau Coal by Indonesian businessman Rizal Risjad. The transaction was financed using two layers of secured structured debt with the subordinated issue, dubbed CELLS – collateralized equity leveraged loan securities – offering investors equity participation rights in the future sale or IPO of the company.

Vincenzo Pelosi explains why pension funds are catching the swaps bug.

Better guide to risk than VaR. According to some hedge fund industry participants, stress testing is becoming a more widely used measure of risk among prime brokers and managers.

We can work it out.

Roger James reports on why the market might finally be ready for takeoff.

Private banks have never had it so good. Every region in the world offers a growth opportunity. Clients want an ever-increasing array of products and services. This leads to intense competition, evident in Euromoney’s latest annual private banking survey. But is further consolidation inevitable? Helen Avery reports.

The acceptance by Qantas’s board of an A$11.1 billion (US$8.7 billion) bid for the Australian airline cements private equity’s place in the country’s mainstream, despite a growing sense of unease among the public and some thorny remarks from senior bankers.