Royal Bank of Canada has launched its €15 billion covered bond programme with a jumbo issue in the European covered bond market. The deal is Canada’s first ever covered bond.

Despite the help of a couple of jumbo multi-billion euro deals by Fortis and UBS, the European convertibles market appears to be shrinking.

The news that spot rouble trades have taken place electronically on EBS and LavaFX between Russian and foreign banks has been taken by some observers as proof that the currency has taken a significant step towards full convertibility. However, the deals mask the fact that Russia’s settlement system is still a real impediment to the rouble’s wider acceptance and is harming the government’s hopes that it will one day be accepted as a reserve currency.

Leading specialist emerging market fund manager Ashmore Investment Management believes that local-currency and high-yield corporate debt could be the prime way for investors to take advantage of US dollar weakness and sub-prime mortgage concerns in the coming year.

Market participants will live to regret not getting their own houses in order.

Tranches on the LCDX index debuted in mid-October, receiving a warm reception despite the cautious atmosphere in both the cash and synthetic leveraged loan markets. Dealers shrugged off comparisons to the doomed tranches on the ABX index (TABX) and are quietly confident that LCDX tranches will prove to have merit. However, given the still-fragile state of the credit markets, they are not expecting the new product to take off overnight.

Markit and Creditex held the first-ever LCDS credit event auction on October 23. The duo were the official administrators for the auction of US video store chain Movie Gallery’s defaulted contracts. Establishing a cash settlement price via an auction avoids difficulties arising from the fact that many contract holders might not have a position in the loans underlying CDS contracts.

RBC Capital Markets has made Mike MacBain co-head of its global debt markets business. MacBain, who will be based in New York, will focus on financial products and commodities, alongside Richard Pilosof. MacBain was most recently president of TD Securities and global head of DCM and cash equities.

Devising le menu is something that the French are famous for turning into an art form. Société Générale certainly did not disappoint for the France vs England semi-final of the rugby World Cup.

Research released in mid-October came to the far-from-shocking conclusion that two in five of workers in the UK’s financial services sector are stressed.

Proposed US legislation shows that patience has snapped with the markets.

Spate of high-profile delistings by blue-chip European companies boosts Pink Sheets’ premium market segment.

180,600,000,000 the dollar amount of equity capital raised in Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) so far this year. The total is up 137% on the same period in 2006 thanks to record volumes across all Bric markets.

Sub-prime slime and the credit crunch have diverted attention from global imbalances. However, any dollar rout would be ugly. Neglect is no substitute for policy.

After the build-up of its sales and distribution teams under Keenan Altunis and Steve Turner, UniCredit has switched its attention to its trading force. The bank has appointed Ben Welsh, the former head of FX, global markets and US rates at HSBC New York, as its co-head of global FICC. Shortly after he started, it was announced that Welsh had persuaded the well-regarded Dan O’Sullivan, who was head of FX trading North America at HSBC, to join him. The pair, who also worked together at Goldman Sachs, will be based in London.

In October, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) added to its set-up in the Caribbean. The number one Canadian bank announced a $2.2 billion acquisition of RBTT (Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago) Financial Group. RBTT had been in discussions with potential buyers since April and suitors included Canadian rivals Scotiabank and CIBC, through its FirstCaribbean unit. RBC is paying for the group with 60% cash in hand and a further 40% in RBC shares.

In front of a US Senate committee, the agencies are indignant while investors claim they are focusing on the wrong signals.

Leaving to one side the continuing debate about the causes of the credit crunch and how best to cure the dislocation in money markets, the relative inadequacies of European capital markets, especially in fixed income, are undisputed.

We don’t usually like to blow our own trumpet at Euromoney, but our Regional finance and investment conference for south east Europe, now in its seventh year and still going strong, is without doubt one of the landmark shindigs in the region. And not just for the sun-drenched charms of the ridiculously picturesque fishing village of Cavtat in Croatia.

Liquidity facilities have come out of the shadows, and many are surprised by what they really look like.

Quantitative investment strategies are valid, says report.

While Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and others enjoy unprecedented levels of activity, and London and New York poach more Asian business, the Tokyo Stock Exchange is struggling to recapture the success of its early 1990s’ heyday. Is it too late for Tokyo? Lawrence White reports.

France is looking to contest England’s supremacy in the financial world by challenging London’s claim to be Europe’s financial centre.

How do you price liquidity risk?

As Euromoney went to press, Bank Saint Petersburg was set to provide an important test of investor sentiment towards the Russian banking sector, with the bank’s initial public offering sure to be closely watched as an indicator of investor appetite for Russian banking assets in the wake of the fallout from the problems in the US sub-prime mortgage market. Joint bookrunners Deutsche Bank and Renaissance Capital set the price range for the IPO at $4.35 to $5.65 per share and $13.05 to $16.95 per global depositary receipt. Post-IPO the bank should have a market capitalization of $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion. As of July, BSPB was the 27th biggest Russian bank by assets

"This is the leather room, which we reserve for our more intimate client relationships"

In a move that highlights the broadening appeal of products that offer convenient access to Russia, Lyxor Asset Management has launched the first UK-listed exchange traded fund to cover the Russian equity market. The Lyxor ETF Russia, which is based on the Dow Jones Rusindex Titans 10 index covering the 10 biggest Russian companies by market capitalization, is being offered alongside a family of new ETFs covering all four of the big emerging market economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. ETFs are index-tracking funds that track the performance of a given index and combine the simplicity and liquidity of shares with the diversification benefits of a traditional collective investment scheme. Since Lyxor ETFs are traded on multiple broker-dealer platforms on leading exchanges, they are designed to offer investors maximum liquidity while levying low annual management fees in the 0.15% to 0.85% range.

The Mexican stock exchange, the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, has announced plans to go public before the end of the year as it attempts to lead by example in the poorly performing Mexican IPO market.

India’s booming stock market was given a thorough hiding on October 17. Rumours had been swirling for days that the country’s market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), was planning to ban the use of participatory notes (PNs), which allow any foreign institution to invest directly in India-listed stocks without having to be registered in the country as a foreign institution.