Search results for

• FX is experiencing lower levels of volatility in a benign, low-risk environment but this is not necessarily a bad thing for the market and there are still opportunities to make money

Belgian bancassurance player KBC has become the latest foreign bank to buy into Russia. Late in April it agreed to pay up to €761 million to acquire at least 92.5% of Absolut Bank, 3.8 times the book value. It is the biggest banking M&A deal in Russia. Absolut Bank is one of the fastest-growing banks in Russia and has doubled its loan book on an annual basis for the past five years. "Over the past decade, KBC has built up a strong presence in many of the countries that joined the EU in May 2004 and January 2007. KBC’s long-term strategic plans entail further expansion in the markets of emerging Europe. Russia is therefore an extension of our existing presence in neighbouring central and eastern Europe," says André Bergen, KBC Group chief executive.

After social and economic upheaval in the 1990s, Albania is at last beginning to reveal a more positive side to its nature. Guy Norton reports from Tirana.

"It was one of those deals that really worked. It caught the market, it caught the moment and it caught the imagination" -Tim Skeet, Merrill Lynch

Is a high level of consolidation in the FX market sustainable? And what of the hundreds of banks that fall outside the bulge bracket?

CEZ leads the way for CEE corporates

Euromoney collected data for its 2007 FX survey by polling named individuals at industrial and commercial corporations, financial institutions, institutional investors and state agencies.

Euromoney collected data for its 2007 FX survey by polling named individuals at industrial and commercial corporations, financial institutions, institutional investors and state agencies.

The present run of stock market buoyancy cannot be sustained. And that’s not just because credit is set to contract – so, too, are corporate profits.

"And what drives me? I want to create a huge empire. That is what drives me. And as long as God is willing and gives me strength and I am healthy, I will do that"

But Tate & Lyle puts itself on the Pink Sheets.

Slackening underwriting standards in loans that back a burgeoning CDO market? It all sounds horribly familiar.