Search results for

The prevention of re-runs of the Northern Rock catastrophe depends on something better than the duplication of an existing regulatory committee.

Fortis’s equity market fund-raising for its part in the consortium bid for ABN Amro was big and bold, with brave backing from Merrill Lynch.

Emerging markets Equity indices in emerging markets outperformed those of developed markets in 2007, rising 42% compared with a gain of just 9.4% in developed markets, according to Standard & Poor’s global stock market review, The World by Numbers.

"It’s mainly America’s fault," says a Tokyo analyst with a smile as he walks to the elevator after a meeting. The US is often unjustly invoked as the cause of problems in Japan but this time it’s hard to argue with the assessment. On January 22 the Nikkei 225 stock average plummeted 5.7% to 12753, prompted largely by fears of a US recession. It was a depressing year for Japanese stocks in 2007, with IPO volumes shrinking by more than 50% year on year and the Nikkei creeping downwards. This year looks to have had a bad start too: blame the US or not, local analysts say the index could dip below 12000 this year.

Proposals for establishing an EU-wide definition for bank capital have caused a stir in the arcane world of hybrid regulation.

Banks must come to terms with higher costs of funding, putting some at a competitive disadvantage to their peers for the first time. The worst hit might have to rethink completely how they fund themselves.

The list of credit bosses to resign from their positions has grown longer. Grant Kvalheim has resigned as co-president of Barclays Capital, leaving Jerry del Missier as president of the UK bank under the chief executive, Bob Diamond. Kvalheim lost the credit trading book in the autumn to del Missier, leaving him with a somewhat reduced role. John Winter and Peter Goettler, who were part of the team that followed Kvalheim out of Deutsche Bank in 2001, continue in their respective roles as heads of European and US investment banking.

"Subprime" (or sub-prime if you write for Euromoney) has been voted "word of the year, 2007" by the American Dialect Society.

A long-term government guarantee of Northern Rock’s wholesale funding might prompt other mortgage lenders to demand similar treatment even if they are not in financial difficulty.

The Sepa revolution quietly creeps in

The credit crunch has spurred an increase in the number of new hedge fund launches. Marco Masotti, partner in the fund formation practice at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, says he has had an increasing number of enquiries from new managers over the past two to three months. "Some are setting up as they wish to take advantage of the investment opportunities that have sprung up, others are leaving financial institutions to start on their own as they are unhappy with management changes, or bonuses at their financial institutions."

The debt poll of polls