International cash management meets the global challenge

It’s not easy to see, but behind the trillions of dollars of FX trading a collision between new technology and traditional banking is changing the economics and mechanics of the business. So far, participants talk politely of cooperation.

Supply of both Islamic-compliant and conventional instruments has so far failed to keep up with the voracious levels of demand across the Middle East, but there are signs that product-starved investors might now begin to see a steadier flow, though far-reaching challenges remain. Kathryn Wells reports.

A mixture of accounting issues, demographics, trends in the equity market and a sharp fall in bond yields has revealed the chasm between the assets and liabilities of pension funds in the UK, Europe and the US. Many will be unable to pay their pension promises in full. Most will be pushed into liability-driven investment strategies. But are they a real solution or an expensive act of desperation?

Acquired asset managers often fail to fulfil their promise, as Deutsche Bank has found more than once. But Deutsche’s parachuting of Axel Schwarzer into US firm DWS Scudder looks set to be a success story.

Lawyers are cashing in by advising managements of public companies in ways to ward off evil hedge fund activists. But activism, handled with decorum, can be positive for management and investors. And who better to be an activist than a hedge fund manager? Helen Avery reports.

Conflict over oil and gas supplies is set to fuel tension between western Europe and Russia in coming years.

Flushed with the success of its 2005 activities, with more than $20 billion raised through privatizations for the Turkish treasury, the country’s privatization administration wants to reattempt the sale of tobacco firm Tekel. The government’s latest attempt to sell the firm was just last year, but no bids were received. This was blamed on an increase in tax on tobacco products. It also tried, but failed, to sell the company in 2003. Other entities slated for privatization this year include Halkbank, petrochemicals firm Petkim and Turkish Airlines.

With Mario Draghi taking up a position on the European Central Bank’s governing council, and Jürgen Stark set to be the next new member, the inner sanctum is likely to become more pragmatic than doctrinaire.

Italy’s Intesa has won the battle to acquire an 85.42% stake in Ukrsotsbank, Ukraine’s fourth-largest bank. The bank has 527 branches and serves more than 660,000 customers. Banca Intesa says that it values the bank at $1.3 billion and that its total investment will amount to $1.61 billion, including the share capital increase. Intesa already owns banks in Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia & Montenegro.

It hasn’t been the easiest of starts to 2006 for Citigroup in Asia, with continuing integration challenges at its Korean banking acquisition and difficult negotiations with existing and future partners over its China strategy [see Citigroup fails to solve the China conundrum, this issue]. Now Citi’s China strategy will need to be reconsidered after the departures of chief rainmakers Francis Leung and Wei Christianson.

Focus is on the potential for corporate debt outperformance in 2006.

The Iranian authorities’ recent granting of operating licences to two new private banks (Bank Sarmaye Daneshgah and Bank Pasargeda) suggests that the sector has a future, despite president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparent disdain for his predecessor’s reformist agenda.

In Japan emerges from the shadows, February issue, we reported that Nikko Citigroup had led a ¥120 billion domestic bond deal for Sanyo last September. In fact, the deal was for Sony. Apologies to all concerned.

Synthetic bond is a precursor to bonds in Egyptian pounds.

Jorge Maortua, deputy head of global wholesale banking for Grupo Santander and the group’s head of treasury services, is running a fast-growing business. Perhaps more important, his division, while finding alternatives to traditional low-margin lending, is building key relationships with the bank’s clients, including small and medium-size enterprises.

Kazkommertsbank sold a S$100 million ($61 million) bond last month, the first ever Singapore dollar-denominated issue from a Kazakh issuer. European investors bought 65% of the three-year paper, with the rest divided between Asian and offshore US accounts. Singapore government securities offer very low absolute rates, and the deal’s success was attributed to the pick-up and currency diversification that it offered.

Asian-based hedge funds generated 30% of all reported commissions earned by brokers over the past 12 months on trades of Asian stocks.

A US Federal court case may force Congress to consider amendments to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Stock market reforms and restructuring portend further share price rises. There is money to be made, say fund managers, for those with patience and diligence.

Fitch and S&P put Nigeria’s risk of default on the same level as Brazil and Turkey.

As KPMG wins a $5.4 billion advisory mandate, are consultants stealing big deals from investment banks?

Where developed western markets go, Asia’s markets usually follow. Bankers in the region are confident that’s true of hybrid securities. From a buy-side perspective, hybrids have arrived already. As many as a dozen international issuers, most conspicuously from Latin America, have successfully tapped an Asian retail market driven principally by private bank clients hungry for yield.

The problems of open-ended real estate funds might pave the way for the rapid success of Reits.

US state’s decision to pass a law protecting a bank from shareholder activists is seen as a setback for investors.

The organizers of Rosneft’s IPO, tentatively scheduled for October or November, are considering placing the shares in Tokyo as well as in Russia and London, according to Valery Nazarov, head of the Federal Property Management Agency. However, he has so far ruled out a simultaneous flotation.

This could be just the beginning of a battle between exchanges and their users.

Dollar bond with enhanced curve is a sign of bigger things to come.

Arcelor, the Luxembourg-based steel company that has in the past preferred not to use bank advisers, is wheeling out the big guns to defend it against the €18.6 billion ($22.1 billion) hostile bid from Mittal Steel. It has just hired Morgan Stanley, which will join BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Merrill Lynch in advising it. Most of the main advisory firms are involved in the hostile bid on one side or the other. Mittal Steel is being advised by Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Société Générale and Citigroup.

As China’s banks continue their rapid restructuring, government and regulators are already mapping out the future for the industry. “One word is becoming very important in China’s banking sector – deregulation,” says Zhang Jinguo, president of Bank of Communications (Bocom). “Banks in the west were talking about this in the 1980s and 1990s. We’ve been talking about this only since last year.” The People’s Bank of China, the mainland’s central bank, wants several so-called universal banks to emerge. That, say China bankers, means huge opportunities for mergers and acquisitions of banks and other financial services businesses such as securities firms and insurance companies.