There’s widespread agreement that there are too many portals providing FX prices but consolidation has been slow. Is the market going to stop waiting and roll out multi-asset platforms instead?

After weeks of confusion, Turkey’s central bank has a new governor. Analysts hope he will preserve the largely successful policies of the outgoing chairman. Durmus Yilmaz has been appointed to replace Sureyya Serdengecti, who retired on March 14 after five years in charge. The appointment follows weeks of uncertainty after staunchly secularist president Ahmet Necdet Sezer turned down the AKP government’s initial suggestion of Adnan Buyukdeniz, chief executive of Albaraka Turk, an Islamic bank.

London is seen as the property hotspot in 2006.

The rush of foreign investment into central and eastern Europe has undoubtedly improved standards of corporate governance. But the results of this year’s Euromoney survey of the best companies in the region reveal that some state-owned companies that might prove difficult to acquire also rate highly for their management standards. Lawrence White reports.

Having been fined £6,363,643 in April by UK regulator the Financial Services Authority for failing to observe proper standards of market conduct and failing to conduct its business with due skill, care and diligence, Deutsche Bank must be keen to promote a spotless reputation in all aspects of its business.

Will US issuers start to look at Europe’s institutional markets?

Bankers reckon convertible bonds will be a product to watch in the developing world.

(May 2006) It is early days but US issuers are seriously considering covered bond issuance. There are economic and regulatory reasons why this makes sense.

ResCap was able to pay back its domestic debt owed to GMAC ahead of market expectations following a $3.5 billion multi-tranche transaction ($1 billion of three-year sub, and $2.5 billion of senior – split into $1.75 billion of seven-year and $750 million of three-year).

A collection of valuable photos brought together by Refco over three decades is on sale at Christie’s in New York in an attempt to raise money to help pay back the $16 billion the commodities trading firm owes to creditors. Works by such photographers as Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus and Andres Serrano are included in the collection, which is expected to raise north of $6 million.

Equity derivatives dealers have set up an industry group to improve trading efficiency and iron out operational issues in their market.

More than a few doubts have been raised about the rumoured plans of state lender China Construction Bank to buy a major stake in US investment bank Bear Stearns. However, sources in the firm’s Asian head office believe the plans are serious. “I haven’t seen a lot of guys with white socks walking around the office yet,” says a senior employee, “but there’s definitely truth to the rumour. It’s typical Bear strategy: late to the party, perhaps, but a smart call.”

No, you didn’t misread the headline. This year’s re-rating of the Philippines’ economy recently pushed short-term yields to four-year lows and even inside their US counterparts’ temporarily, according to ING. Could the unthinkable be happening? Might Asia’s perennial underachiever be about to turn the corner?

Looks to have got bargain with its $775 million purchase of spot broker.

In his last interview as director of public credit for Colombia, Felipe Sardi talks to Lawrence White about the strategies his successor will inherit, his efforts to increase the liquidity of Colombian securities and his plans for the federation of coffee growers.

Recent figures from Reuters’ Loan Pricing Corporation show that borrowers have it better in the US now than ever before. Strong growth in the M&A market meant that syndicated loan issuance in the US reached the highest volume on record in the first quarter of the year.

The ECB sets great store by the transparency of its decision-making process and the clarity of its communication with the outside world. ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet was reminding us of this again last month.

10,000,000,000 the minimum amount in dollars that Russian IPOs, excluding Rosneft, are expected to raise this year, according to bankers. The Russian government hopes to raise as much as $15 billion from a London IPO of Rosneft this year.

Is there enough room for both sorts of hybrid in the European acquisition finance market?

Azerbaijan Electronics, one of the country’s largest energy utilities, has sold a $1 million one-year bond, the first from an industrial issuer in the country. The bond yields 14.5% and was issued at par.

Central bank to change tier 1 regulation in two months.

Austrian bank CA IB has launched REX, the first publicly available real estate index to cover emerging Europe and the closely related Austrian market.

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, has issued a stark warning to the US government – threatening to blow up his country’s oil fields if the US were ever to attack. Speaking at a mini-summit in Paraguay involving four Latin American presidents, Chávez said: “We won’t have any other alternative but to blow up our own oil fields – they aren’t going to take that oil.” Venezuela is the fifth-biggest oil exporter in the world and one of the largest suppliers to the US. The US denies that it has any intention of attacking Venezuela.

Guillermo Nielsen, Argentina’s former finance secretary, has a new role in the public sector. He is the minister of finance for the city of Buenos Aires, which has the third-largest budget in Argentina. Nielsen’s main task will be to reorganize the working of the city government and to attract investment.

A new IDB report says the financial community should take advantage of the benign economic conditions and produce instruments capable of automatically compensating for economic setbacks. They include bonds linked to commodity prices, national growth rates or the occurrence of national disasters.

Forget the stymied constitution, Parisian événements, electoral tangles and government overspending – eurozone corporates are doing just fine and consumers are picking up on the mood.

Morgan Stanley has made its most senior investment banking hire since John Mack took over as chief executive last year and since the departure of one of its star M&A bankers, vice-chairman Joe Perella, one of the key defectors during the turmoil at the bank in the first half of last year.

Deutsche Bank is about to launch an entirely new FX trading platform aimed squarely at attracting flow from the retail end of the market.

The New York Stock Exchange needs to have its hybrid system ready before Reg NMS takes effect but it has only just completed Phase I. It might not have too much to worry about, though, as many other market participants are unprepared and a delay is widely expected.

Germany’s True Sale Initiative received some much-needed publicity last month when the first CLO to be structured under the programme emerged from Dresdner Bank.