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Financial institutions’ woes are not at an end. Non-deposit institutions still have losses to book and the whole credit creation model is broken. So a quick and easy upturn from the credit crisis is not to be expected.

When BlackRock announced in May that it would be buying $15 billion of UBS’s sub-prime mortgages, for some market participants it signalled the bottom of the mortgage-backed securities market. But house prices are still falling. Is US real estate still too risky? Helen Avery goes doorstepping.

"There are no second acts in American lives," wrote F Scott Fitzgerald towards the end of his own monochrome career. He can’t have been talking about Wall Street: as anyone who has tracked the career of John Meriwether will know, third, fourth and fifth acts are perfectly possible. Perhaps more careers have taken a dramatic turn in the present crisis than was the case when the hedge fund LTCM failed; for those seeking an uplifting plot twist, a stage name might come in handy. Euromoney has noticed that merely shuffling the letters in the names of some victims of the credit crisis produces plausible pseudonyms, and respectfully presents the stars of tomorrow: Enterprising readers might wish to suggest their own anagrams: Euromoney confesses to being stumped by Jonathan Chenevix-Trench, former COO of Morgan Stanley’s institutional securities business.

Kuwait Projects Company (Kipco) has decided to reorganize its financial services holdings.

Euromoney: What was the reasoning behind the latest reorganization?

Fortress’s first-quarter earnings sparked some concern among market participants but chief executive and chairman Wesley Edens says the worst is now over.

It seems that life at the UK Treasury is far more relaxing since the credit crunch hit last summer. According to figures released by the Treasury, staff took in total an average of 166 days off a month because of stress-related illnesses in the first half of 2007, while in the second half of the year the figure was 106 days.

The region’s importance could mean more banking officials relocating there.

Why has idiosyncratic Idzik exited? In early May, it seeped out that Paul Idzik, Barclays’ chief operating officer, had decided to leave the UK bank. And for a while, all anyone wanted to discuss was the Idzik exodus.

Despite conflicting views on the state of the economy and uncertainty caused by political unrest, banks are riding high on mortgage lending and consumer loans. There is still huge untapped potential for credit cards. High interest rates remain the fly in the ointment, however. Julian Marshall reports.

HBOS deserves the gratitude of its rivals for its attempt at a UK RMBS benchmark, but it may prove futile in the short term.

Slovakia’s now near-certain entry into the eurozone in January 2009 should help bolster the country’s credit ratings and improve investor sentiment towards the country, say bankers.