Reaz Islam, head of Citi’s Falcon Strategies hedge funds, is leaving the bank.

Martin Egan is the new global head of debt capital markets at BNP Paribas. Egan maintains his role as head of primary markets where he oversees fixed income syndicate.

When a medical doctor with close ties to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was appointed as minister of finance many were surprised. Surapong Suebwonglee has worked hard to woo Thai people and foreign investors with tax cuts, capital markets reforms and a focus on growth. Lawrence White met him on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank meeting.

The recent burst of issuance in Spain appears to have run its course, but the news is better in Portugal.

New president Ma Ying-jeou is intent on improving relations with the People’s Republic of China, with likely benefits for business, especially in financial services. Chris Wright reports.

After a year that has been ruthless in its revelation of sub-par debt services, the Euromoney debt poll reveals which banks have managed to survive the credit crunch with their reputations, and their client bases, still intact.

The commodity price boom masks fundamental questions about the value of commodity investments in a portfolio, the choice of commodities and the most constructive use of indices. Euromoney’s debate panel grapples with the crucial issues.

Most US hedge fund managers are pessimistic about the US economy this year, according to a survey by Kinetic Partners.

The usually laborious task of bringing a new exchange traded fund product to market in the US looks set to become a thing of the past once new SEC rules come into play.

A rights issue boom means investment banks have bizarrely profited from their failures.

After the bleakest of winters, springtime in the debt capital markets was an especially joyous affair. In April and May there were record new-issue volumes in the US and a revival of the European market. That is good news for large financial institutions and the big underwriters.

Revelations on Moody’s mis-rating of CPDOs could be the most damaging yet.

Venezuela has negotiated a new loan agreement with several Japanese companies. The money is earmarked for the expansion of two oil refineries and the loans will be repaid in future oil production. This is not the first time Venezuela has relied on oil repayment – China is owed $4 billion in oil for a loan and PDVSA owes Japanese companies Mitsui & Co and Marubeni $3.5 billion in oil. Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister of Venezuela, said the money would be used to expand the El Palito and Puerto la Cruz refineries and increase their capacity to process heavy crude. Ramírez said: "Japanese companies are moving very aggressively, they want a position in Venezuela." He did not say which Japanese companies are involved in the deal but Japan is looking for ways to reduce its dependence on Middle East production. In 2007, Japanese refiners brought Venezuelan crude for the first time since the 1980s.

Brazil plans a sovereign wealth fund.

Inflation in South Africa continues to shock after reaching 10.4% on a year-on-year basis in April. The rate confounded expectations, including that of Tito Mboweni, the central bank governor, who told Euromoney, two weeks before the announcement of the April figure, that he believed it had peaked at the end of the first quarter.

Who’d be a DCM head in 2007 or 2008? These bankers would. Alex Chambers finds out what the head officials at leading banks think are the key lessons the market has learnt and what the future holds for debt capital markets.

It was all going so well. In the past three years the Philippines has been the poster child of emerging markets fiscal policy, turning a crippling deficit into an almost balanced budget. But having done all the hard work, its achievements might all be derailed, thanks to the soaring oil price and rising food prices.

Equity issuance volumes, especially IPOs out of Brazil, will pick up in the second half of the year, according to senior bankers in Latin America, after the credit crunch put a halt to the region’s four-year boom.

Oi Participações, the Brazilian telecoms group formerly known as Telemar, is to buy local telecoms rival Brasil Telecom for R$5.86 billion ($3.5 billion). The merger will create the leading telecoms operator in Brazil, with 70% of Brazil’s fixed-line market. The deal awaits changes in the regulatory framework, which does not allow a single group to hold two separate telecoms concessions. Rothschild, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse advised Telemar. Brasil Telecom did not employ any investment banks.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But according to analysis by Riskdata, investors would have been able to predict funds that would lose money back in June last year had they used the right models.

The European Commission’s threat to restrict emission credits could fatally hurt the growing carbon market. Peter Koh reports.

20,000,000,000 - 8 - 8.7

CLS adds shekel and Mexican peso...

Nasdaq OMX has chosen the European Multilateral Clearing Facility, run by Fortis, to be the clearer for the pan-European MTF that it plans to launch in September. Nasdaq OMX’s choice is a boost for EMCF, which also handles the clearing of rival pan-European MTF, Chi-X.

NYSE-Euronext is capitalizing on regulatory convergence to show issuers some of the benefits that it had hoped its transatlantic merger might be capable of.

The Middle East and north Africa will be the top-performing regions in 2008, according to a survey of 1,000 investors by Deutsche Bank.

Focus Capital, a specialist emerging markets absolute return manager, has launched a fund of funds that invests across multiple asset classes.

Capital International Private Equity Fund V (CIPEF V) has closed with funds totalling $2.25 billion.

Much of the focus on the credit crunch has been on the biggest financial intermediaries, but fixed-income investors were also shaken. Alex Chambers finds out what the biggest players think are their opportunities and challenges.

Companies must guard their cash more zealously than ever before and deploy it more efficiently as economies slow. Banks with the right products to help them will prosper. Those don’t include high-yielding cash funds. Peter Lee reports.