“You ask a hedge fund manager how quickly can they do a deal. And they reply: ‘Is tomorrow quick enough?’”

Recent popular new issues rapidly faced heavy trading and price falls. With the tendency of speculative money to disappear as quickly as it arrives, it remains to be seen whether it will continue to plague IPOs later in the year.

Leading presidential candidate promises orthodox finances.

Two unconnected events in the Byzantine world of Japanese banking indicate some progress, albeit slow, in the reform of this troubled sector.

Investors want growth and are impatient to get it. Bank CEOs are feeling the pressure, so expect more M&A activity.

In the end the winner was Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency, but a little-known fact is that Hugo Chávez was also in the running for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuela’s president was one of an incredible 199 people on the short list for the award. According to Australian bookmaker Centrebet, Chávez had odds of 80-1 to win. Long odds, perhaps, but a whole lot shorter than Tony Blair’s at 500-1 or George W Bush’s at 1,000-1. It’s doubtful that this will encourage a rapprochement between Washington and Caracas.

Cash corporate credit might be in short supply but borrowers still need to tread carefully.

Delphi’s bankruptcy shows that many of the imbalances remain in global structured credit.

There are no holds barred in the competition between exchanges. As people arrived to hear a Hans Tietmeyer lecture in the City of London organized by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, they were greeted outside the venue by young ladies handing out leaflets spouting the benefits of trading FX with Eurex US. It all seemed harmless enough.

Erste Bank launches The New Europe Blue Chip Index, covering the largest C&E European stocks traded on the Vienna stock exchange.

Agency’s rating action places extra focus on bank’s securitization of first-loss positions.

At long last the first big refinancing of German multifamily residential units is starting to happen. The €1.55 billion Immeo Residential Finance is in effect a new asset class – multi-family residential. The underlying asset is a portfolio of 48,000 units in the Rhine-Ruhr region formerly owned by Thyssen Krupp purchased by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund (MSREF) and Corpus. This will be the benchmark for other German multi-family real estate refinancings that will take place in the coming months.

Reports that Spanish company Telefónica was in talks to acquire Dutch telecom rival KPN for around $24 billion sent shares in KPN soaring and prompted talk of another round of consolidation in the European telecoms market. KPN denied being in talks with Telefónica.

In another sign of Vietnam’s economic reforms, the finance ministry confirmed in local media that the government had approved the country’s maiden sovereign bond issue. Up to $500 million-worth of dollar-denominated bonds are likely to be issued this year. Moody’s upgraded the sovereign to Ba3 in July.

After a few tough years, the country is on investors’ radar screens again.

Saudi and Qatari banks launch new investment products. National Commercial Bank has become only the second Saudi Arabian financial services provider to launch a Shariah-compliant mutual fund that will invest in the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Hybrid corporate bonds might be the new hot product of the Eurobond market but originators’ hopes for a deluge of new issues have not been fulfilled.

CDP’s latest issue shows the benefits of looking beyond the usual suspects to banks that offer strong secondary market support and enhanced distribution.

As the world awakes to the possibility of a bird-flu pandemic, analysts at CLSA have assessed the economic implications for Asia of an outbreak. CLSA has compiled an index of relative economic risk based on healthcare expenditures per capita, tourist arrivals per capita and total trade as a proportion of GDP. The results might surprise most readers. Based on these three measures, Hong Kong and Singapore emerge as the economies most at risk, followed by China, Malaysia and Thailand. Despite high spending on healthcare, both Hong Kong and Singapore remain highly exposed to the economic fallout from a pandemic by dint of their high dependence on international trade. Each country also has tourist arrivals roughly twice its population.

US investors could put more than $470 billion to work in US treasuries if Asia’s appetite for dollars continues to fall. Analysts identifify a huge potential for domestic reallocation.

Equal opportunities mean that the City of London is no longer just a boozy boys’ club – and rightly so. But plying punters with alcohol and beautiful women is still a great way to promote your product, even in these politically correct days. Just ask Threadneedle Investments.

Three monoline insurers were used to credit wrap Scotia Gas Networks’ £2.22 billion ($3.9 billion) bond sale via sole arranger Barclays Capital, and lead managers Citibank, RBS and DrKW in October. This deal refinanced acquisition loans extended for the purchase of the Scotland Gas Networks and Southern Gas Networks from National Grid Transco in June (five out of nine networks were also sold). Although investors are hungry for stable investment-grade credit (BBB in this case), the lack of financial history – a requirement for an exchange listing – meant that arranger Barclays was required to bring in the monolines – Ambac, FSA and XL Capital. The structure was sliced into 11 tranches and sold to a wide variety of investors (euro and sterling, fixed, floating and index linked). SGN is owned by Scottish and Southern Energy (50%), Ontario Teachers (25%) and Borealis Infrastructure (25%).

But withdrawal of investors with unrealistic expectations seen as advantageous.

Why CFOs should stop mistrusting hedge funds

Arab banks have sustained the recovery that began in 2002, with Gulf institutions in the forefront. Morris Helal reports. Research provided by Capital Intelligence.

Many investors fear October because it is associated with a number of market crashes. But according to research from ADVFN, a pan-European equity markets website, it is actually quite a good month for equities.

In the face of an uncertain economic outlook, including rising inflation caused by oil price rises and the scrapping of heavy fuel subsidies that forced rises in local interest rates, the Indonesian government has raised $1.5 billion of bonds. The government’s steps actually helped the issue since international investors felt that the administration of president Yudhoyono is finally getting to grips with the problems facing the country. The government issued $900 million 10-year bonds at a yield of 7.625% and $600 million 30-year bonds at a yield of 8.625%, respectively 329 and 406 basis points over US treasuries.

New US bankruptcy laws that came into effect in October will alter the way companies go through restructuring and might make it harder to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In addition the ability of companies to manage their own reorganization will be affected – giving creditors more say after a few months.

Wealth management arm put on course to “grow by multiples”. The appointment of Thomas Kalaris as chief executive of Barclays Wealth Management signals the start of a rapid build-up.

Increasing numbers of pension funds in Europe are making the choice not to use hedge funds in the region since returns have dropped off.