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When Malcolm Glazer bought UK Premiership football club Manchester United in May, alarm bells rang. The £790.3 million ($1.4 billion) deal was partly funded by a high-cost loan of £275 million from three US hedge funds, and subject to strict ebitda targets over the first two years.

Acceptance as asset class and Ucits III mean new retail currency funds.

Most analysts got it wrong in 2005, who says they’ll get it right this time?

Hybrids will drive investment-grade issuance this year. The emergence in mid-December of Burlington Northern’s $500 million hybrid debt transaction via Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs indicated that the first US corporate hybrid, issued by Stanley Works the previous month, was not a one-off.

Australian lender ANZ became the latest foreign bank to invest in a mainland Chinese lender in December 2005 when it agreed to invest $120 million for a 19.9% stake in Tianjin City Commercial Bank. TCCB, based in Tianjin, is China’s fourth-largest city commercial bank by assets, which totalled $8 billion as at October 2005. The bank serves 5 million customers from 180 branches and offices. ANZ plans to provide TCCB with access to its intellectual property and technical resources, specifically to build risk management, retail banking and trade finance capabilities. ANZ has clearly considered its investment in TCCB carefully: Tianjin was voted “most livable city in China” according to an international survey and it is twinned with Melbourne, ANZ’s home city.

Loss of guidance note 5 wording boosts shareholder leverage.

Investors seem to like Mexico’s new investment fund, Impulsora del Desarrollo Económico de America Latina (Ideal), owned by the country’s richest man, Carlos Slim.

Last year was tumultuous for Ecuador. A president was ousted, a spat with the World Bank threatened to get out of hand and there were genuine fears that the sovereign might default. At long last, though, there are signs that Ecuador might be on the path to recovery, not least because of the strong support that the sovereign received for its first bond issue in six years.

Latin American banks have come a long way since the financial crises of the 1990s and ordinary citizens are bringing their savings out from under their mattresses like never before.

Corporate hybrid has moved beyond investment grade. The development is significant for the leveraged finance community – it’s one thing persuading buyers to invest in the subordinated debt of an investment-grade company, but finding investors receptive to one from a BB/Ba2 credit is quite another. Hedge funds and certain other institutional investors were reluctant to get involved. Yet German tourism and shipping company Tui was able to raise €300 million of perpetual (non-call seven) debt rated B+/B1 via Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HVB and RBS. The coupon was 8.625%. Those going for the issue, of whom a big proportion are retail investors, certainly deserve that coupon given that this is a highly cyclical business. The deal was part of a €1.3 billion offering to refinance short-term acquisition funding of CP Ships.

Analysts are pondering the new economy minister’s strategy.