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Year-long talks to create leading investment bank in Brazil break down.

Borrowing such a large amount on an unsecured basis showed how strong state-owned Russian companies have become.

Rarely, if ever, has an issuer faced such a challenging environment for its debut bond issue.

Rumours had been swirling around about the fate of ECN Hotspot for weeks. Many commented that with legendary billionaire currency speculator Joe Lewis as one of its backers, Hotspot was unlikely to be experiencing a cash crunch. Nonetheless, its present owners have seen fit to accept an all-cash bid of about $77.5 million for the business from Knight Capital Group. The close of the transaction is subject to receipt of appropriate regulatory approval and is expected to be completed within 90 days of its announcement on January 24.

Japan’s recent M&A boom is set to accelerate, driven by aggressive upstart companies, foreign and domestic private equity buyers and hungry overseas corporations. Now they have restructured, healthy Japanese corporations have plenty of domestic consolidation to do. M&A is becoming an increasingly accepted management tool. A handful of leading Japanese companies will use it to cement global leadership. Peter Lee reports.

In 2004, the Société Générale Group created a new division, Global Investment Management and Services (GIMS) to seek out synergies between asset management, private banking and securities services. Shahnaz Mahmud explores how successful the French bank has been at identifying these connections and the impact on SGAM.

It may not have been the most successful deal of 2005, but the French supermarket group kick started the hybrid market.

Japanese companies are now creditworthy and the banks are recapitalized but neither side seems keen to enter into loan transactions. But companies can see the long-term value of establishing access to capital markets. And lenders are keen to repackage and redistribute credit risk in new ways and define a new relationship with corporate customers. Peter Lee reports

Aegis – the ABS fund manager established by Richard Stow and Miguel Alcober two years ago – has sold its first CDO, Cavendish Square Funding, via BNP Paribas.

Bankers and investors question the slew of Latin American perp issues.

Euromoney’s annual poll of polls shows that universal banks still dominate overall because of the breadth of their business. But firms such as Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch and Société Générale are scoring notable successes in their chosen areas. Clive Horwood spoke to their heads of investment banking.

Just a few years ago, mezzanine finance was very much an alien concept in central Europe. That changed in 2003 with the arrival of the region’s first dedicated mezzanine fund. Today, mezzanine provision is booming, and its proponents hope it can play a significant part in the leveraged buyout boom predicted for the region. Kathryn Wells reports.