Banks and listed property companies are finding ways to respond to interest in international investments

Greater transparency is essential for ABS to be used as repo collateral

The Unico network of cooperative banks is nearly 30 years old. As it approaches middle age, can it persuade European debt issuers that the concept of a Unico deal that reaches both big and small investors across the continent is more than a neat branding ploy?

Eksportfinans hopes funding costs will plummet if online execution of structured products grows popular

From electronic trading platforms to credit event fixings, inter-dealer broker Creditex regularly sets the pace in the electronic credit derivatives trading. But the market didn't know quite how to take spin-off of its post-trade processing platform T-Zero.

Toshihiko Fukui has overseen a successful policy U-turn in Japan's fight against deflation. Despite intense pressure, he has kept interest rates low until sustained inflation returns.

Europe's leading companies are so threatened by competition from aggressive and multiplying private-equity firms that they need to mimic the firms' approach.

As real estate establishes itself as an asset class of choice for investors large and small, advisers are reaping the benefits. The next product in the production line could be property derivatives.

Wells Fargo leaves US equities stategy business

There's a lot of money to be made from the beautiful game. Deloitte's football money league shows that the top 20 football clubs in the world are set to break the £2 billion ($3.6 billion) income mark in 2005, for example. Germany's GNP is set to grow by €8 billion as a result of hosting the 2006 World Cup, and about 500 advertisers are set to spend €7 billion to enhance the branding of their products. According to VAT reclaims company Lowendal UK, an estimated €15 million will be spent on sponsorship events during the World Cup.

With valuation problems worsening, one US bank CFO thinks the major UK banks are becoming more appealing

After months of debate about the number of companies to be reprivatized, progress is made

Fund management AXA Investment Managers has acquired Framlington Group from HSBC and Comerica for £174 million. The deal adds about £4 billion to AXA's £52 billion ($93.5 billion) in UK assets under management, and puts an end to rumours that AXA IM was considering scaling down its UK business.

Mifid promises to shake up EU financial markets in a way that will make Big Bang look like a gentle nudge. To have any hope of meeting the implementation deadline of April 2007 investment banks might need to set aside as much as $12 million each in their 2006 budgets. Peter Koh examines the fallout

Research points to declining returns and greater risk as hedge funds grow older

Studying the birth chart of the US shows planetary patterns coinciding with upheavals and depressions in the country's history – and in his new book, Robert Gover predicts a decade of depression ahead. Helen Avery looks at this alternative approach.

Mexico has long been known for its big public companies: Televisa is the world's biggest broadcaster of Spanish-language programming, and wireless telephone group America Móvil has a reach that criss-crosses Latin America. But, with an illiquid stock market, Mexico falls short in providing financing for start-up firms that could be the region's Amazon.com or Apple, undermining the country's economic potential and shunning venture capitalists that are some of the most important providers of funding for small companies. "Mexico's problem is not a lack of capital or a lack of ideas, but a lack of local investors willing to take the necessary risks," says Howard Wallack, the recently appointed director of the Latin American Venture Capital Association (Lavca). "Mexico needs good business plans with the right people to execute them."

European borrowers make peso bonds hot new instrument

Shorting scoop picked up

There are signals from Korea that the government and regulators are taking an increasingly tough line with foreign participants in the local markets.

China's currency revaluation is more evolution than revolution but will have a number of knock-on effects

Public-sector banks in Europe have hit on a new and potentially profitable idea. They're trying to turn themselves into localised versions of the universal banking model. Who are some of the successful early movers? And we look at how Europe's cooperative banks are teaming up in debt capital markets.

New Dealogic data reveals the must-have private-equity clients – the ones that spend the most on investment banking fees

THE PARIS CLUB has gone through fundamental change over the past year. First it agreed to an enormous debt reduction for Iraq, then it started to allow debtor nations to buy back their debts. Most recently, it came to a long-awaited and ground-breaking agreement with Nigeria that involved elements of both debt reduction and buyback.

Persistent rumours are circulating in China that mainland authorities are likely to auction off a controlling interest in state-owned Guangdong Development Bank. Although unconfirmed, if the rumours prove accurate the GDB sale could presage the start of the true privatization of China's banking sector.

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Country risk index: Most countries have better access to capital than ever before and sovereign credit ratings have been on the rise for the past three years. But an increasingly tense geopolitical environment has led to marked decline in this year's country risk ratings. Research and analysis by Paul Pedzinski.

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