The CIS markets offers lucrative investment opportunities despite the broader emerging markets sell-off.

The merger of Caisse d’Epargne’s and Banque Populaire’s investment banks and asset managers opens up the possibility of even more consolidation in France.

Investors need to tread with caution as uncertainty surrounds the Federal Reserve’s next move.

At the end of May, representatives of many of the quasi-independent agencies set up to manage the government debts of OECD and emerging market sovereigns gathered in St Petersburg to compare experiences. There was much to discuss: the meeting came just as diverse pressures are building up on the debt management offices (DMOs).

The ability of the CDO bid to distort the wider capital markets is significant – and growing.

Is there too much capital trying to find a home?

The heyday of the traditional debt capital markets is long gone. Who would have thought that, some six months into the year, it would have taken just a $6 billion share of underwriting to take top place in the US investment-grade corporate bookrunner table? Go back to 2004 and it would have been something like $10 billion. Perhaps a bigger surprise is that this number trails behind the equivalent European league table (€8.5 billion).

Hedge fund managers need to realize that many investors will be attracted most by track record and big-name managers.

Saudi regulator leaves a positive legacy for his country’s financial markets.

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

A compulsory minimum free float for banks listing in Russia is illogical, hard to police and might not be in investors’ best interests.

The removal of restrictions on trans-national M&A are fundamental to EU principles. Turkey is setting an example.

Competitors gloating over the firm’s current predicament are likely to be sorely disappointed.

Proponents of European high yield think covenants for issuers should be relaxed if the market is to survive.

Saudi Arabia’s stock market regulator, the Capital Markets Authority, is in an invidious position. At the start of the year CMA officials tried in vain to warn naive retail investors about the dangers of piling into the under-researched, thinly traded speculative stocks that comprise nearly a quarter of the country’s public companies. They were ignored: dismissed as interfering, risk-averse bureaucrats. The market, driven by rising corporate profitability resulting from the high oil price, rose to absurd levels.

Until discrepancies between index auction prices and single-name CDS recovery rates can be ironed out, investors should sell recovery basis risk.

The US hybrid market has suffered a setback following a recent NAIC ruling.

It’s a good job that many US investment banks have had such a strong first quarter. They need the cash to keep the regulators at bay.

Euromoney meets the chief executive of a specialist financial services firm recently bought out by management. Such deals are rare in a sector where most participants are inherently leveraged through their day-to-day operations. Is the firm’s capital structure not now rather strained? Not at all, says the CEO. It could ask its backers or other third parties for more money tomorrow and get as much as it wanted. Raising money isn’t the problem. Almost anyone can get funding right now. Identifying the right investments to build the business – that’s the tough part.

Further reformis essential if the region’s stock exchanges are to come under the steadying influence of institutional investors.

While rivals’ share prices roar ahead, Citigroup’s languishes. Investors love stocks that are easy to understand. So is it time for Citi to develop a clearer strategy?

Treat your back-office staff well lest they take umbrage and run away to a hedge fund.

Finance minister’s resignation leaves investors feeling cautious.

How will money be made in emerging markets debt when bid-ask margins are anorexic and expected returns uncompetitive?

The US bank has made an expensive foray into China’s banking market, with little to show from two-and-a-half years’ work and millions of dollars spent.

Hedge fund managers are increasingly shopping around and using more than one prime broker at the same time.

Latin America’s development bank has to change tack as countries in the region rely less on dollar funding.

Financial sponsors now account for an important chunk of advisory fees, but not all banks are cashing in.

Bond investors are starting to clamour for extra protection as buyout risk increases.

In last month's edition of Euromoney we published an article on page 10 headed "Is Deutsche's CDO business out of control?" which referred to Mark Stainton, Deutsche's successful former Head of CDO trading. Some readers may have thought that the article suggested that there was a link between Mark Stainton's departure from Deutsche to go to Citadel and an alleged overstatement of profits by Deutsche's trader Anshul Rustagi, whose dismissal from Deutsche Bank is currently subject to appeal.