“Issuers can tap the US private placement market but we want to get to the next leg down. In the long term European corporates want their own source of demand”

Jonathan Hill has eschewed grand ambition for practical reality in his CMU green paper.

Dubai’s success as a financial centre depends on whether or not it has succeeded in its aims. And what were they?

Successive crises have taken their toll on the private-equity industry in emerging Europe and enthusiasm for the region has waned. Nevertheless, its combination of strong growth and opportunities for convergence with western Europe continues to attract a hard core of supporters.

Belarus’s leaders are promising a dramatic package of reforms that could overhaul the country’s sclerotic command economy and reduce its dependence on Russia. The only trouble is, no one believes them. Mixed messages to the bond markets haven’t helped.

The country hopes a deal can revive its stumbling economy, but it will be hard to stick to the IMF’s conditions when the 2016 elections are so close at hand.

The country’s banking industry is growing fast. New laws designed to encourage foreign investment make it easier for offshore firms to wholly purchase local lenders. But there are plenty of barriers to entry aside from regulation.

The investment banking arm of Banco Espírito Santo’s search for an investor had begun long before the shenanigans at its parent bank began to come to the surface in the summer of 2014, according to Francisco Cary, BESI’s deputy CEO and chief financial officer.

With equity and now debt funding getting scarcer in public markets, Latin American corporates must think of other options. For longer-term investors, and for those with a strong appetite for risk, the region’s troubles are a rare opportunity.

It took the collapse of Banco Espírito Santo, rather than the eurozone crisis, to redraw the map of Portuguese banking. Will the revised landscape show Iberian consolidation, or a new Chinese foothold on the continent?

HSBC is pushing hard in its drive into Latin America’s markets. From a DCM foundation, it is moving into other areas, though competition will be fierce.

Boosted by a rich run of privatizations, the Turkish M&A market burst into life last year, hitting the highest total value of deals for close to a decade. The hope for 2015 is that the same feat can be repeated. In an election year, anything is possible.

The region’s local debt markets are at a crucial point. International interest is growing. Investment banks are building up. But with one exception, domestic supply and demand remains limited. Can other countries follow Mexico’s lead? Euromoney investigates the dynamics of Latin America’s main bond markets.

Private placements have usurped securitization as Europe’s great SME financing hope. The financial markets support EU commissioner Jonathan Hill’s Capital Markets Union initiative to promote it. But the thriving US market will be hard to compete with, let alone replicate. Which leaves two questions: Can the EU build it? And, even if it can, will issuers and investors come?

Toshifumi Murata of Latin America for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) is confident of continued growth.

Tarpon takes control of Abril for R$1.3 billion; new regulation might limit numbers of higher students.

Needs credibility before returning; wants to avoid punitive pricing.

Private equity firms staff up; bank versus non-bank competition increases; talent ‘harder to come by’ than in 2008.

Investors forced out along the curve; issuers play currency and duration game.

Retail banks to be hit hardest; corporate clients set for higher charges.

Argentina’s relative seclusion from the international capital markets has meant a lot of volume has built up in the local markets.

Peru’s economy has been averaging more than 5% growth a year for the last 10 years but that growth has not, as yet, been matched by corresponding growth in the volume of bonds issued in its local debt capital markets.

Rabo and BPCE pioneer samurai deals; Japanese investors see big risks at euro banks.

Bring up the topic of Chilean financial markets to a financier with a regional role and more often than not the adjective they use is 'sophisticated'. However, while the country has the longest-standing investment-grade credit rating and has strong, well-capitalized banks, that isn’t synonymous with sophistication.

Having a buyside full of risk-averse investors is a common theme among Latin America’s local debt capital markets but Colombia takes this to the highest level. Unless you are locally-rated AAA or AA+ then forget about the debt markets – bank debt is for you.

Basel wants end to use of credit ratings; further regulatory changes deplored.

Biggest-ever bond sold in two tranches of 10 and 15 years, underpinned by robust banks.

The record books have multiple new market landmarks to note so far in 2015. Investors should be wary, it will be a rollercoaster ride and there may be nausea ahead.

Political pressures and lack of growth have put the European project under threat. Reform is urgently needed to set Europe back on course.

Brazil has all the ingredients for successful local markets, but it keeps failing to deliver.