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The small teams of professionals who work for the three clearing houses (foreign exchange, securities, derivatives) at Brazil’s Bolsa de Mercadorias & Futuros (BM&F) have a claustrophobia-inducing office, locked as they are inside a glass cube that sits in the centre of a larger room inside the exchange’s headquarters. Despite working in this intimidating setting, the clearing houses’ directors are welcoming and their efforts are for now focused on increasing foreigners’ access to and participation in Brazil’s growing derivatives market.

Venezuela’s president has threatened to nationalize telecom company CanTV in a row over workers’ pensions.

Are bad habits returning to corporate Korea?

The long overdue bank consolidation in the Philippines highlighted in June’s Euromoney looks as if it is under way. Within days of the article’s publication, two of the key identified targets sealed a deal. Union Bank of the Philippines acquired International Exchange Bank (I-Bank) for $263 million equivalent. That price values I-Bank at about 2.2 times book value and gives Union Bank an additional 78 branches and $1.35 billion equivalent of assets. Now rumours are circulating that a much larger prize might be up for grabs. Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), the banking arm of the Yuchengco Group, is said to be in play with several mooted buyers.

The endless game of musical chairs at private banks in Asia claimed one of its most high profile scalps in August when Credit Suisse poached Marcel Kreis, southeast Asian head at arch-rival UBS, to run its entire Asian operation.

In the July issue of Euromoney we incorrectly stated that Mizuho Securities had “number one league table status in yen bonds ($31.4 billion from 191 deals)”. The figures quoted were for Mizuho Group rather than Mizuho Securities; they should have read “number two league table status with $18 billion from 105 deals”.

The latest in a string of initiatives to encourage companies to list domestically has been unveiled.

The Egyptian government is about to part with one of its hottest assets. Bank of Alexandria, the country’s third-largest bank, with a balance sheet of $6.5 billion, will find itself in the hands of a strategic investor. And the government will find itself a good few Egyptian pounds richer.

Ukraine is likely to issue a new Eurobond in October, after a functioning government was finally installed in August.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has hired Manfred Schepers to be its new vice-president for finance. Schepers, who for the past two years has headed the European arm of the Bond Market Association, will take up the new role, which is similar to that held by a CFO in a commercial bank. He will look at the asset portfolio, treasury, strategy and budget at the supranational. “From my time at UBS, I’ve a lot of interest in development finance and emerging markets,” Schepers told Euromoney. Schepers worked at UBS for a little under 20 years and replaces Steven Kaempfer, who held the position for eight years before leaving the bank in June.

Azerbaijani company raises funds from outside the country by issuing bonds, a first from this country.

Valuations of sustainable stocks are becoming less sustainable as alternatives become conventional.