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BNP Paribas

Tudor Investment Group, the $18 billion alternatives firm, has hired Greg Hanley and Alan Mintz, co-heads of the distressed debt group at Bear Stearns, to head a new business focusing on credit-related strategies. Three other Bear Stearns employees are also joining the group.

RBS RBS has risen to the stiff challenge of the European market post credit crunch and established a serious US franchise.

Goldman Sachs

Barclays Capital has hired Rudy Alexis from Bank of America, where he was head of FX sales Europe. Sources say he will join the bank as a managing director to run its Iberian, Italian and new markets corporate FX sales team and report to Jim O’Neill, Barclays’ co-head of UK and European corporate foreign exchange and corporate risk advisory.

The 2008 Global Awards for excellence

Banco Agrícola remains best bank in El Salvador, with net profit margins up 30.38% in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with a year before. Net income totalled $237.2 million in 2007, an increase of $61.8 million on 2006 and total assets increased to $3.79 billion, up from $3.33 billion the year before.

Butterfield Bank Group reported a 2008 first-quarter net income of $36.3 million, the second highest on record for the group and up 1.8% year on year. Total operating revenue grew year on year by $16.2 million, or 14.6%, to $127.1 million. The loan portfolio increased year on year by 11%, or $419 million, to $4.2 billion. This increase reflected increased loan demand across the banking group, in particular in Bermuda, up 15.8%, Barbados, up 11% and the Bahamas, up 104.3%. The group’s balance sheet remains highly liquid, with a loan to customer deposits ratio of 37.8% compared with 39.2% a year ago. Deposits with banks and investments increased year on year by 14% to $8.1 billion and amount to 62.9% of total assets.

Appetite for distressed ABS is not nearly sufficient to mop up supply.

After being among the top performers of 2007, Asia-focused hedge funds are suffering this year. In 2007, the HFR Asia composite hedge fund index returned more than 17%, and the Asia ex-Japan index almost 40%. Year to end-May 2008, however, the Asia ex-Japan index is down almost 10%. If investors piled in based on past performance, they will now be kicking themselves.

Credit crunch? What credit crunch? This could be the Middle East’s favourite mantra. But for bad as well as good, bankers in the region are acutely aware of events in the rest of the world.

Bank Muscat dominates the Omani banking market, and it appears unwilling to let go of that position. In 2007, the bank’s total shareholders’ equity doubled to $1.6 billion. Its total assets grew 40% to $11 billion. Its operating income grew 30% to $500 billion, and its net income grew by a quarter to $324 billion. In the first quarter of 2008, the bank’s profit rose almost 40%.