When two management reports from 2010 audited by KPMG were leaked to the campaign group Global Witness and released online, the world was given a remarkable insight into where the LIA had invested. And since all its assets have been frozen since early 2011, it is very likely still accurate.

Mohsen Derregia was plucked from nowhere to run the $60 billion fund of the Libyan Investment Authority. He found a mess that he spent a year trying to clean up. Now, as many of LIA’s investments are being reassessed, he’s on his way out. He tells an extraordinary tale of sovereign wealth in a conflict-torn country.

Lebanon can boast something few developed economies have – growth and a well-capitalized banking sector. Sadly, this and the promise of a natural resource windfall cannot hide the dire need for structural reforms and leadership from the top to undertake them.

Amid political pressure to reduce cannabis-related crime, the legalization of the drug for medical usage could create a $40 billion industry in the US alone, opening up new investment opportunities – with Portugal, Spain, Israel, Czech Republic and Canada also on the radar for venture capitalists. Some even describe the opportunity as a new form of social-impact investing.

The retiring Bank of Israel governor showed exemplary prescience in shielding his country from global economic crises.

A repeat of an emerging market crisis of yesteryear can't be ruled out – thanks to the prospect of a sharp contraction in domestic credit supply and portfolio flows – amid dollar strength, warns George Magnus at UBS.

Evidence of at least some degree of a Chinese slowdown over the past six months has coincided with a different development. Since last summer, there have been reports of mining corporations losing hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to union activity and stoppages in South Africa.

Mining has been central to Africa’s resurgence and an associated wave of international listings. But shareholders are now pressing the big mining companies to conserve cash. Amid talk of strikes and nationalism, can the sector handle a less voracious China?

Investors are probably being too bullish about the size and buying power of Africa’s middle class.

Biggest post-crisis Middle East IPO; doubles ISX market cap

Rosneft signs second tranche; Maroc Telecom next

Retail investors targeted; liquidity constraints remain

The prospect that quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve could come to an end much sooner than expected has frightened investors, but the negative effects on emerging markets shouldn’t be overstated, say analysts.

Currency war has been dominating the headlines, but there is little reason to suppose that EM policymakers are set to join the fray.

A decade after Malaysia sold the first global sovereign sukuk, the market is growing from strength to strength, as are the traditional Islamic finance leaders.

In the Middle East rising sukuk issuance gave a new angle to the global emerging market debt boom. Sovereigns and supranationals launched daring benchmark deals, while in sub-Saharan Africa an outrageous last-gasp hijacking of a deal redefined the way China approaches M&A.

The same month brought another impressive debt deal from the Gulf, this time from International Petroleum Investment Corporation (Ipic), Abu Dhabi’s state-backed investment group for the energy sector worldwide. This was a big, multi-currency offering, raising $2.9 billion equivalent in three tranches: a $750 million three-year, a €800 million 5.5-year and a €850 million 10.5-year.

With little happening in regional equity issuance, the most important deals in 2012 in the Middle East, even more than other emerging regions, were in debt – and, in particular, sukuk. This was the year when Islamic capital market issuance really found its voice, from Qatar’s international record $4 billion sukuk to a Turkish sovereign debut, Axiata’s dim sum sukuk and important domestic deals in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. There was a record $144 billion of issuance in 2012, according to Ifis, part of the Euromoney group.

Further south, the standout M&A deal of the year was Chinese company Jinchuan’s R9.112 billion ($1.02 billion) acquisition of Metorex. It told us a lot about the changing nature of Chinese acquisition in resource-rich Africa.

Moving to north Africa, debt was again the most interesting area of the capital markets, and nowhere more so than in the Kingdom of Morocco’s extraordinary $1.5 billion 10- and 30-year dollar debut in December.

The appeal of the transaction services industry for new talent has never been higher, as high-impact, pejoratively dubbed 'casino' investment banking job opportunities vanish. Technologic nous and an ability to navigate new client demands – amid market and regulatory shifts – are key skills that budding transaction bankers must develop to make their names in the industry.

In an interview in his office in Riyadh, Suliman Azzabin, chief executive of Al Rajhi Bank, pours scorn on allegations that link his bank to terrorist financing repeated in the US Senate report on HSBC last year. So what is Al Rajhi Bank in 2013 really, and how is it still making so much money?

What does the future hold for family ownership and oversight at Al Rajhi Bank?

Aldar, Sorouh agree merger; State to hold 37% of combined entity

State desperate for new funding sources; controversy at heart of political divide

Higher fund allocations to Nigeria might be justified, but the timing isn’t.

According to a recent note by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the great rotation is here. Bonds, quantitative easing and deflation are losing ground as risk appetite and growth, albeit tentative, pick up. 2013 will see equities, banks, value stocks and stockpickers rising up the ranks.

All of the G10 countries, with the notable exception of Sweden, saw their risks rise in 2012, according to the latest results from Euromoney’s Country Risk Survey – and not just because of the problems affecting the debt-ridden eurozone sovereigns.

Banks’ proprietary cash management portals are under pressure, as corporates migrate to bank co-operative networks, such as Swift, attracted to the allure of multiple service providers and hedging counterparty risk.

By Simon Pettitt, head of fixed income at Westhouse Securities