Anthony DeChellis The head of UBS’s private wealth management team in the US is joining rival Credit Suisse to head its private banking operations for the Americas. Credit Suisse has made clear it intends to focus aggressively on building its wealth management offering in the US.

Venture capital in Latin America, led by Brazil, Chile and Mexico, has come a long way since 2003, when the industry raised just $417 million in funds. Last year, the figure reached $2 billion, according to the Latin American Venture Capital Association and, if Brazil can realize its potential, the figure could double by 2008. Brazilian pension funds, with about $120 billion in their portfolios, are making venture capital-linked investments for the first time ever this year, led by state oil workers pension fund Petros.

Saudi petrochemicals company Sabic will issue domestic sukuk bonds with a total value of at least SR1 billion ($267 million), according to the company’s financial vice-president, Mutlaq al-Morished. The bond should be finalized this month or next, with huge demand expected from the paper-hungry local market.

Lebanon puts itself back at the hub

Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former prime minister, says her political coalition is committed to a programme of privatization and economic reform if a representative of her team assumes the top job in the country’s next government.

Troubled emerging markets companies could soon benefit from the development of sophisticated bespoke deals aimed at increasing investor confidence.

Here are the bond issuers that have taken the market by storm over the past 12 months: from the IFC, punching above its weight within the World Bank group with its pioneering work in developing local bond markets, to Bayer’s use of innovative methods to maintain its credit profile while making acquisitions.

Otmar Issing has been the most impressive advocate of the ECB. What happens now that the bank has lost its implicit third pillar in monetary policy?

The listed infrastructure fund, which is common in Australia, is gaining traction in Asia, with two new structures hitting the market in recent weeks.

Investment banks are thinking of setting up their own alternatives.

I was lunching at Cecconi’s with my friend Richard. Cecconi’s is an Italian restaurant in Mayfair frequented by hedge fund hotties, Latvian lovelies with pneumatic mammaries and the odd voyeur such as myself. Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of publishing group Pearson – or her doppelganger – was at the next table. Regretfully, under my Cecconi classification system, she falls into the voyeur category. Well she’s hardly a buxom Latvian is she? Richard is the brother I never had. He is funny, clever, irreverent and, in his spare time, a successful investment banker. If he weren’t one of my closest friends, I would hate him for the insouciance of it all.

If a product swamps a market, prices go down. Yet this basic economic tenet seems to have eluded many of the issuers in the Spanish covered bonds market. How else to explain the consistent lack of coordination in issuance endemic in the world of the cédulas?

NAIC’s SVO brings further woe to the hybrids industry; the US market looks less viable than it once did.

Funds are circumventing anti-concentration regulations with single-stock futures.

Banks in the Philippines are set for more consolidation as new regulations threaten weaker lenders in a fragmented market. High valuations have dissuaded some from deals, but economic recovery might force them to reconsider. Chris Leahy reports.

Maverick leader opens arms to international and national investors.

Of the 8,000 or so hedge funds globally, around 97% are focused on the US and European capital markets. And although opportunities in Asia, Latin America, and central and eastern Europe are being recognized, with the net amount of money flowing into hedge funds that focus on emerging-market investments rising 13% in 2005 according to Hedge Fund Research, not many investors are sufficiently confident to invest in these regions separately.

Russian firms seek investor-friendly foreign talent; investor-friendly foreign talent seek large bonuses.

Southern Cross Group is making waves in Latin American private equity, standing out because of its aggressive and sometimes contentious strategy – it only invests in companies in which it has unchallenged control of management – which is bringing it high returns.

HSBC’s decision to tell the world in advance when it is will carry out a large FX transaction to pay its non-dollar based shareholders their dividends is transparent. But is it wise?

The heyday of the traditional debt capital markets is long gone. Who would have thought that, some six months into the year, it would have taken just a $6 billion share of underwriting to take top place in the US investment-grade corporate bookrunner table? Go back to 2004 and it would have been something like $10 billion. Perhaps a bigger surprise is that this number trails behind the equivalent European league table (€8.5 billion).

Investors need to tread with caution as uncertainty surrounds the Federal Reserve’s next move.

Is there too much capital trying to find a home?

Saudi regulator leaves a positive legacy for his country’s financial markets.

At the end of May, representatives of many of the quasi-independent agencies set up to manage the government debts of OECD and emerging market sovereigns gathered in St Petersburg to compare experiences. There was much to discuss: the meeting came just as diverse pressures are building up on the debt management offices (DMOs).

Hedge fund managers need to realize that many investors will be attracted most by track record and big-name managers.

The ability of the CDO bid to distort the wider capital markets is significant – and growing.

At a time when M&A volumes are rising, a toughening up of the CFIUS could deter foreign companies looking to buy in the US. And that would take a serious chunk out of Wall Street’s fees. Kathryn Tully reports.

The eagerly awaited opening up of mainland China to Reits investment continues to hang fire but the market is hot elsewhere in the region, with retail and institutional investors piling into new issues. Some in the market, though, reckon that investors often have over-inflated expectations of Reits’ returns and a poor grasp of the complexities of the deals. Chris Wright reports.

Bayer has played white knight for the second time this year. The German chemicals company rescued Schering from the clutches of Merck in March with a €16.5 billion offer