Search results for

Meet Mr Pakistan

Meet Mr Pakistan

Societe Generale Asset Management has launched the SGAM ETF T-Rex on the Euronext Paris exchange and, along with IndexIQ, is one of the first firms to embrace hedge fund ETFs. IndexIQ is readying a series of five ETFs that track hedge fund strategies (FA, 9/15). The SocGen fund tracks the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, which is down 9% this year.

Meet Mr Pakistan

Meet Mr Pakistan

The recent turbulence at the heart of Pakistan’s political machine raised significant but nuanced questions for Mian Mansha. The two individuals publicly responsible for ousting Pervez Musharraf as president – former premier Nawaz Sharif, and Asif Ali Zardari, the current president and widower of the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto – are also prominent members of the country’s rich list. Zardari, second in the rankings, is worth an estimated $1.8 billion, while Sharif, ousted as premier in 1999 by Musharraf, is worth $1.4 billion (but possibly as much as five times that tally), largely thanks to his shareholding in the Lahore-based Ittefaq Group, founded by Sharif’s father, Muhammad.

UBS heads the Dealogic league table for investment banking fees earned between January and September this year. The Swiss bank, which was awarded the title of best investment bank in Asia in Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence 2008, took a 5% market share with $323 million in fees during the nine-month period. Citi and Goldman Sachs were second and third respectively.

It might have been the most turbulent month in memory for global stock markets but equity capital raisings did not grind to a halt. In fact, September has seen a spate of equity raisings from banks despite, or rather because of, the fact that they are at the centre of the market’s turbulence.

When a bank is huge in a particular market, the cost can sometimes be a lack of agility. Success can breed complacency, and a market-leading position might lead to a certain absence of ingenuity and a danger of getting set in one’s ways. Citi, this year’s – and last year’s – overall Euromoney Cash management poll winner, runs no risk of hubris despite its vast scale and huge commercial success.

The failure of the US House of Representatives to pass the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 at its first reading on September 29 came despite the entreaties of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association to its members to call their congressmen before noon that day to explain to them why the legislation must pass.