TAM, Brazil’s leading low-cost airline, is seeking to maintain and improve its position with funding such as its recent 10-year bond. CFO Libano Mirando Barroso talks to Chloe Hayward about the bond and the airline’s business strategy.

Standard & Poor’s has raised the long-term counterparty credit ratings for two of Citadel’s funds from Triple B to BBB+. "The funds’ performance in 2006 was strong and at the top of their peer group based on strong contributions across nearly all of the firm’s nine business units," said S&P’s report. "In 2006, Citadel Group reaped the rewards of years of restructuring and investments but also strongly benefited from its acquisition of the energy business of failed hedge fund Amaranth Advisors. Last year saw a significant increase in returns compared with 2004 and 2005, accompanied by an increase of the volatility of returns as measured by the standard deviation of monthly returns, but at all times well within the prescribed risk limits of the funds. The funds have never had an unprofitable year."

Commodity markets used to be dominated by producers and users hedging their production and consumption. Now the mass arrival of investors has profoundly transformed these relatively small and illiquid markets. Peter Koh reports.

The smart money is already betting that the credit cycle is turning.

Companies working on improving inadequate water supplies in Asia’s growing economies are the prime focus of Wessex’s water investment fund. Co-founder Tim Weir tells Helen Avery how the company analyses their likely profitability.

In late May, Fitch Ratings cautioned that the outlook for debt issuance from central and eastern Europe might not be quite as rosy as some bond originators would have us believe. Although acknowledging that macroeconomic fundamentals in the region are strong and that the global environment remains generally supportive, the London-based ratings agency warned that substantial external financing requirements in some states mean that they are relatively highly exposed to a potential abrupt tightening in global liquidity. "Sovereign credit ratings in emerging Europe have risen further over the past 12 months, with seven upgrades and no downgrades," says Ed Parker, head of Fitch’s emerging Europe sovereign group. "However, upward momentum may be running out of juice, with only three countries – Armenia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine – now on a positive outlook and two – Hungary and Latvia – on a negative outlook."

Market mechanisms, not inflexible penal taxation, are the way to deal with global warming. And market approaches also open profitable channels for investors.

Broker dealers collaborate to sponsor Project Alpha.

Despite a long-running battle between the government and the army over Turkey’s religious and political future, foreign investors continue to flood the country with capital. That means plenty of business for foreign and domestic investment banks, and for a new wave of small but ambitious boutiques. Lawrence White reports.

Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan launch collateralized FX obligations.

Banks are often inclined to monitor new issue league tables for evidence of their performance in fixed income. In Euromoney’s debt poll, though, those banks’ clients get to tell their side of the story. Quality and quantity, their views suggest, by no means always equate.

It is often the informal parts of conferences that are the most revealing.

Euromoney journalists are used to conversing on all manner of subjects related to financial matters but last month your reporter found himself engaged in a most surreal topic: lactation rooms at banks.

More on Oman Blue City

Quantitative hedge funds are increasing in number. Larger ones with the money to invest in research, technology and staff are becoming ever bigger while smaller quant funds struggle to keep up. Are quantitative strategies the sure-fire way to uncover and pin down alpha, as many investors are beginning to believe, or is human intervention in their implementation still all-too important? Helen Avery reports.

Amid the fallout from the US sub-prime sector collapse, investors are once again questioning the role of the ratings agencies. It’s not just that the agencies assessed the risks so badly; their harshest critics suggest the main cause for concern is that the raters are too cosy with the issuers on which they pass judgment. Alex Chambers reports.

The Champions’ League football final between Liverpool and AC Milan failed to live up to expectations but that evening London’s capital markets journalists were treated to an unexpected match between Deutsche Bank and UBS. Deutsche had sent out save-the-date invitations over a month before for a press party on the terrace at swanky restaurant Coq d’Argent.

Bear Stearns has hired a new head of sales for prime brokerage in Europe as part of the US bank’s renewed efforts to build a meaningful presence outside the US. The bank appointed James Shekerdemian, from Lehman Brothers, where he was previously head of the quantitative hedge funds sales group.

"Ours is a top-down, bottoms-up strategy"

After a recent correction, Vietnam’s equity market has bounced back and so has capital-raising for new funds. The latest to tap the markets are PXP Vietnam Asset Management and Mekong Capital. Both managers have successful track records investing in Vietnamese equities yet both are raising new funds to expand into new investment areas.

Investors are concerned that while low yields on Latin American sovereign debt and increasing opportunities in the corporate sector are driving more and more investors towards corporate fixed income, Wall Street credit research can’t keep up.

"Algorithmic trading can be shit sometimes"

Asset managers are part of an unusual issuer mix.

Tapping into the growing trend for green investing, in May CLSA Capital Partners launched Asia’s first dedicated water and waste management fund, Clean Water Asia.

Brazil’s market-leading ethanol producer, Cosan, recently made a U-turn on strategy that says a lot about the overheated market for the chemical. The firm rushed out announcements that it would shift from an acquisitive strategy to one that emphasized organic growth, including upgrades of existing facilities and mechanization of the sugar harvest, as well as expansion in less-competitive geographical areas. It blamed prices that it said were "in the clouds" for the rethink. At a hastily convened press conference, managers said that the price of acquisitions in the sector had risen by 147% between April 2005 and January to April of this year, according to the firm’s own calculations.

Dividend swaps market soars as investors profit.

The stake held by Refco in FXCM, a leading retail aggregator, has been put up for sale by the creditors of the bankrupt futures brokers. Initial bids have to be submitted by June 29. Refco’s creditors will then launch a second round for the highest bidders, ending July 29, with the final winner announced in August.

lnvestors question value of ISE deal.

"We absolutely cannot talk about it," was the repeated response of Goldman Sachs to market reports that it is setting up a mini private exchange to enable alternative investment firms to list without the hassles of regulatory oversight.

Institutional investors might reduce private equity investments because of the growing number of club deals.