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The usually laborious task of bringing a new exchange traded fund product to market in the US looks set to become a thing of the past once new SEC rules come into play.

Separating the wheat from the chaff in debt services

After a year that has been ruthless in its revelation of sub-par debt services, the Euromoney debt poll reveals which banks have managed to survive the credit crunch with their reputations, and their client bases, still intact.

Anyone with a brief to outline the benefits of mezzanine lending over the hedge fund and CLO money that recently replaced it could do worse than sit back and wait for the first wave of recent LBO deals to go wrong.

Bankers say there will be further equity capital markets issuance from farming groups in Ukraine in the coming months.

Venezuela has negotiated a new loan agreement with several Japanese companies. The money is earmarked for the expansion of two oil refineries and the loans will be repaid in future oil production. This is not the first time Venezuela has relied on oil repayment – China is owed $4 billion in oil for a loan and PDVSA owes Japanese companies Mitsui & Co and Marubeni $3.5 billion in oil. Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister of Venezuela, said the money would be used to expand the El Palito and Puerto la Cruz refineries and increase their capacity to process heavy crude. Ramírez said: "Japanese companies are moving very aggressively, they want a position in Venezuela." He did not say which Japanese companies are involved in the deal but Japan is looking for ways to reduce its dependence on Middle East production. In 2007, Japanese refiners brought Venezuelan crude for the first time since the 1980s.

Brazil plans a sovereign wealth fund.

Inflation in South Africa continues to shock after reaching 10.4% on a year-on-year basis in April. The rate confounded expectations, including that of Tito Mboweni, the central bank governor, who told Euromoney, two weeks before the announcement of the April figure, that he believed it had peaked at the end of the first quarter.

After the bleakest of winters, springtime in the debt capital markets was an especially joyous affair. In April and May there were record new-issue volumes in the US and a revival of the European market. That is good news for large financial institutions and the big underwriters.

Revelations on Moody’s mis-rating of CPDOs could be the most damaging yet.

Asian investment banking thrives despite woes in Europe and the US.

It comes as something of a surprise to those who inhabit comfortable, developed countries that have already cut down 90% of their woodland and reduced biodiversity to trivial levels that rainforests, for those who live near them, are an obstacle and a problem.