John Mack has the job he always wanted. One of Wall Street’s leading firms has the leader it desperately needed. Morgan Stanley is now the investment bank with momentum. Mack and his senior management tell Clive Horwood how they revived the firm’s fortunes.

In the July 2007 edition of Euromoney, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis gave a rare in-depth interview. Lewis said: "We are not believers in the build it and they will come mantra. We need to look our shareholders in the eye". "In time, we want to be one of the top five investment banks in the world". More than 18 months ago Euromoney said: "Bank of America is at a tipping point. Ken Lewis is about to face his biggest challenge yet." Little did we know how great the challenge would be. Re-read the story here

Its pivotal role in the most important transactions of a hectic year in M&A makes Goldman Sachs the outstanding player in the most competitive market of all.

Find out which institutions have excelled this year in providing high-quality products and services across all areas of commercial and investment banking.

Brazil’s Bradesco has raised $500 million in a securitization structured by ABN Amro. The notes were issued in two tranches of $250 million, with the 2007-1 series receiving triple-A ratings and the 2007-2 series rated at A– and Baa1 by S&P and Moody’s respectively. The notes are due in May 2014.

Pravin Mouli has left his position as head of Morgan Stanley’s Latin American derivatives trading business to run Latin America trading with Javier Timerman at Bear Stearns’ New York office. Meanwhile Juan Martin, ABN Amro’s head of loan syndication, has left the Dutch bank for a similar role at Deutsche Bank. And Sandy Flockhart, president and group managing director for Latin America and the Caribbean at HSBC, is moving to Hong Kong to become the bank’s Asia CEO.

Global Maritime Investments fund has annualized net returns of more than 30%. Founder/partner Steve Rodley of manager M2M explains to Helen Avery how shipping hedge funds are meeting investor demand for diversification and performance.

The launch of faster, higher-capacity systems by exchanges will make life harder for ATSs.

"My only expectation is that I am going to continue to work my ass off"

Big potential seen in mobile communications and financial services.

Emerging markets remain the primary driver of hedge fund returns for 2007 so far, but all of HFI’s indices continue to outperform the MSCI index in the long term.

Although most analysts failed to predict it, the decision by the National Bank of Poland’s monetary policy committee to increase its benchmark seven-day intervention rate on June 27 by a quarter point to 4.50% had only a marginal impact in the market. The zloty strengthened, as might have been expected, but there was only an extremely modest sell-off in the bond markets, particularly at the long end. Most activity took place at the short end of the yield curve.

Numbers of specialists up 63%, to over 300 since Sept ‘05.

Jack Jeffery, chief executive of electronic broking at Icap, quit the broker almost a year to the day after its purchase of EBS. Jeffery, who was parachuted into EBS from Citi in February 2002, had overseen EBS’s integration into Icap, which moved swiftly to replace him, announcing that market veteran John Nixon had assumed the role.

The third draft of Italy’s covered bond legislation has been published.

As covered bond markets continue to thrive worldwide, it appears that the demands of ratings agencies might be becoming a stumbling block.

S&P stance tempers optimism.

Rob Lichten has left his role as global head of FX sales and trading at JPMorgan to take what the bank described as a long sabbatical. His decision came after the bank decided to merge its G10 FX and rates businesses and combine all its emerging markets into its wider EM platform. The bank later announced that Chris Willcox and Matt Zames would co-head global rates and currency trading, excluding Asia ex-Japan.

All the global players have a presence in Australia, which is the fourth-largest asset management market in the world. Chris Wright looks at their strategies.

New service aims to introduce competitive auction for programme trades.

Lorenzo Isla has been appointed head of the structured credit business at BBVA. Based in Spain, Isla will build out a business that will structure, invest in and distribute structured credit risk. Isla worked for Barclays Capital for the past three years where he was head of the structured credit research team. He starts at the end of August and will work from Barcelona and Madrid.

Decisions by two leading banks to allow clients to post bids and offers on their platforms call into question the need for multi-bank portals.

The switch to lower minimum price increments that came into effect in the US listed equity options market in February is making the market more efficient, according to a report. Earlier this year, the US options industry switched its minimum price increment from $0.05 (nickels) to $0.01 (pennies) in 13 key option classes under a pilot programme mandated by the SEC. The switch to penny pricing is already having a positive impact for users of equity options, according to Aite Group, a US consultancy firm.

New head of European flow credit trading; new head of European investment-grade trading.

Neil Wilson, editorial director at HedgeFund Intelligence, argues that there is little substance to the conspiracy theories that dog private equity.

Great-West Lifeco (GWL) has priced the first Canadian dollar-denominated, tax-deductible hybrid capital transaction.

The UK’s Financial Services Authority has granted CME the status of a recognized overseas clearing house. This will allow it to clear products that are not traded on the centralized markets run by the CME in the US, including currency forwards.

Head appointed of a new strategic solutions group.

Corporate treasurers are keeping a close eye on the new regulations that will impact on cash management. The Payment Services Directive is due this autumn – another step forward – yet the timetable for Sepa is still vague. Even identifying the benefits of the changes is a matter of hot debate. Julian Marshall reports.

The world economy is set to keep growing fast for the next few months. But this will take an inevitable toll on the cost of capital, which is already rising.