Northern Rock’s Granite master trust did launch a deal in September – but Granite Master Issuer 2007-3 was a far cry from what the market had been expecting just a matter of months ago.

Just over a year on from the initial launch of its marketindex platform in Germany (see Euromoney July 2006), ABN Amro has decided to enter the highly competitive UK retail market. The bank launched marketindex, which is white-labelled from Oanda, in mid-September. The platform provides streaming two-way prices in various currencies, equity indices, commodities and bonds. For legal reasons, these are designated as contracts for difference (CFDs), although in reality there is very little difference from trading the underlying cash products. ABN Amro will act as counterparty to all trades, although all prices are sources directly from Oanda.

Calyon’s management uncovered a large position of credit indices in its New York office’s proprietary trading desk last month. The bank said positions were largely built at the end of August and were above internal limits. Calyon said appropriate disciplinary action had been taken and controls strengthened to prevent any repeat. The losses, following a winding down of the positions, were €250 million.

When China’s leading state-run banks lined up to announce their sub-prime exposure in late August, it was surprising and disconcerting.

Canada’s Scotiabank has agreed to buy 79% of Chile’s Banco del Desarrollo for $810 million, although it hopes soon to acquire the entire bank. The stake will be purchased from Sociedad de Inversiones Norte Sur, a Chilean investment firm that holds 39%, Crédit Agricole with 24% and Intesa Sanpaolo, which has 16%. "As required by local rules, Scotiabank will be making a public share offering on the same terms and expects to acquire up to 100% of Banco del Desarrollo, which would be valued at $1.03 billion," says Scotia. The deal is expected to close in November. Once it does, the combined operations of Scotiabank Sud Americano, the Chilean subsidiary of Scotiabank, and Banco del Desarrollo will create Chile’s sixth-largest bank.

CMBS conduit lenders in Europe might be forced to return to the market to shed inventory.

Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, announced in September that his country would expand its petrochemicals industry during the next five years, lifting annual revenues to $100 billion. Chávez said that by 2013, after an investment of $20 billion, the industry will have created 700,000 jobs, 10 times the number employed at state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela. On September 23, the president started a "petrochemicals revolution", which will require 87 plants around the country to produce primary materials and petrochemicals-based products such as fertilizers, plastics and cosmetics. Chávez expects these moves to increase petrochemicals royalties to the government from $340 million this year to $20 billion in 2013.

"Interest rate cuts will be like Viagra – an artificial stimulus that doesn’t cure the underlying problem"

Ecopetrol, the Colombian state-owned oil company, is expected to issue up to $2 billion-worth of ADR shares, most likely on the New York Stock Exchange next year, according to investment bankers.

Leading players in Argentine capital markets say the government must issue a trailblazing Eurobond or global bond if the markets are to take off. The country’s financial markets are more than 20 times smaller than those of Brazil, despite Brazil’s GDP ($1.17 trillion) being less than five times greater than Argentina’s ($250 billion).

Firms rushing to set up credit opportunity funds might already be too late.

"If you speak only one language, you are an American."

The ADR has been a very important equity market tool for many years. So long in fact that in 2007 the instrument celebrates its 80th birthday. Apparently, the ADR was invented by John Pierpont Morgan, Jr when his friend and fellow American, Harry Gordon Selfridge, the owner of Selfridges, one of London’s most renowned retail stores, asked him to develop a way for Selfridges shares to be sold in New York. Morgan’s good deed for a friend turned into a very profitable line of work, and one that JPMorgan still holds the top spot in. Now the only question that remains is how exactly JPMorgan is planning to commemorate this momentous year.

"Once you get a contract, unless you screw it up, you get the renewal"

The credit crunch has made life especially difficult for the credit portfolio managers charged with hedging commercial banks’ massive corporate loan portfolios. Lack of liquidity in credit default swaps and the closure of the CLO market has greatly reduced their arsenal of hedging tools. It’s not all bad news though. Wild market conditions have underscored the importance of actively hedging loan books and served to justify portfolio management groups’ existence to banks’ top management.

It seems as if the sub-prime market implosion might have roots deep in the proverbial mists of time.

A long-standing contact gets in touch with a Euromoney journalist via letter.

It’s not often that you can walk onto a trading floor and are greeted by England cricket legend Mike Atherton, twinkle toes Mark Ramprakash, champion jockey Frankie Dettori and Olympics silver medallist boxer Amir Khan.

A prolonged liquidity contraction is irrevocable, whatever happens in the spuriously autonomous real economy.

The fallout from sub-prime worries in the US has cast a pall over the equity issuance plans of Russian companies in the wake of the volatility that rocked global stock markets over the summer.

The asset-backed securities market in Latin America might be hampered by inadequate regulation, said the Bank for International Settlements in a report released last month.

Cash management is a hugely attractive business for the banks that have ended up at the top of the consolidation pile, with earnings stability and high returns on equity. And despite reductions in activity because of such developments as the Single Euro Payments Area, new business is emerging in white-labelled products and financial supply chain management. Laurence Neville reports.

A year ago, fund managers and analysts were confidently predicting as many as seven landmark IPOs on Vietnam’s stock exchanges in 2007, raising as much as $1 billion each.

A senior Citi official in Latin America says that Brazil’s leading local banks will remain independent despite rumours that foreign banks, including Citi itself, could be sizing up a potential acquisition. One banker in São Paulo told Euromoney recently that he reckoned that Brazil’s three big local banks – Bradesco, Itaú and Unibanco – could become targets for global banks, such as Citi, as they bid to increase their presence in Latin America’s most important market.

Barclays Global Investors has appointed Karen Prooth, previously a managing director at JPMorgan Asset Management, as managing director and European chief operating officer for iShares, the company’s exchange-traded funds business, and GIMG (Global Index and Markets Group), which covers a number of businesses from equity index products to securities lending. She will be responsible for coordinating the operations, technology and finance functions for the businesses and reports to Rory Tobin, chief executive of iShares and GIMG Europe.

Barclays Capital is further expanding its equity origination business with the appointment of William Ortner from Citi to its New York office as managing director in equity product origination. Ortner is the latest of several new hires that Barcap has made this year to its equity origination business. He was most recently a managing director responsible for corporate equity derivatives at Citi.

Bankers fear new requirements could prove costly.

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Oanda is an anomaly among the many trading platforms that offer retail FX.