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When I joined Nomura, my Japanese trainee asked me if I knew any good Japanese FX traders. “No. Sorry,” I replied. “I don’t.”

Great-West Lifeco (GWL) has priced the first Canadian dollar-denominated, tax-deductible hybrid capital transaction.

In June, investors began to reject low returns on subordinated structures such as PIK toggle notes from riskier issuers. It will be tougher for sponsors to pile more debt on their already leveraged acquisitions. But public company managers aren’t free from the private equity threat.

Latin America’s largest issuers have for a while been competing on pretty much a level playing field with their competitors in fully developed countries. That’s important for Brazilian miner Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, which in the wake of its acquisition of Canada’s Inco is now one of the world’s four largest mining companies, alongside BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Anglo American.

Who is there to save the day when hedge funds have a blow-up? Why, it’s other hedge funds, which can make a profit clearing up the mess.

The UK’s Prudential and Bank Aljazira, Saudi Arabia’s smallest bank, have signed a memorandum of understanding to promote takaful or Islamic insurance in the kingdom.

Lorenzo Isla has been appointed head of the structured credit business at BBVA. Based in Spain, Isla will build out a business that will structure, invest in and distribute structured credit risk. Isla worked for Barclays Capital for the past three years where he was head of the structured credit research team. He starts at the end of August and will work from Barcelona and Madrid.

Hedge fund research group HFR says that in response to enquiries from investors, it is launching an index of hedge funds run by women and minorities called the Diversity Index. Since January 2003, the number of minority and women-owned hedge funds in the HFR database has doubled to more than 100. HFR president Ken Heinz says that requests have come from institutional investors that are required to invest a certain percentage with minority groups. On a historical basis, from January 2003 to May 2007, the index would have produced an annualized net return of 11.26%.

HVB has continued the build-up of its FX business with several senior-level sales appointments, including Mark Sweeting, who it enticed from ABN Amro in London. The bank also hired Toby Angel from JPMorgan, Peter Graham from Pru-Bache and Sue Rasmussen from ANZ.

"OK, so I screwed up. Even my COO called me up and said: "Great pitch mate, really compelling – shame about the logo on the top of the page"

Bank of America’s next step forward

There’s trouble brewing in the Chinese stock market. But a short, sharp shock could be just what is needed.