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Hedge funds are main drivers into insurance underwriting. An increasing number of hedge funds and private investors are looking to the insurance markets as a source of attractive returns and diversification.

Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and RBS finance the UK pub party.

Arcapita has been named best Islamic private equity house in recognition of its leading position in the world of international shariah-compliant private equity. The firm was created in 1997 and currently employs more than 140 people in its offices in Bahrain, Atlanta and London.

Structured products are a hugely profitable business line for investment banks. They allow banks to package up risks and pass them on to third parties in the form of an investment where the buyer may win or lose, but the seller always stands to gain.

Malaysian retail bank Southern Bank had its expansion plans scuppered in December by Bank Negara Malaysia, the country’s central bank, after BNM refused to approve Southern Bank’s proposed acquisition of Asia General Holdings, a Singapore general insurance company.

Although Takaful Malaysia remains a major player in the field of shariah-compliant insurance, offering some 117 types of general takaful schemes, it is primarily focused on southeast Asia. In contrast, the winner of this year’s award, HSBC Amanah, has a global reach. It now offers general takaful products to both its retail and corporate clients in Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the UK, via a combination of its own manufacturing capability and white labelling. The general takaful offering was only initiated in late 2004, however, meaning that volumes are still small.

This year’s winner is Denton Wilde Sapte, while 2005’s winner, Norton Rose, came a close second. Denton Wilde Sapte has dedicated Islamic finance teams in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and London, and its client list includes ABC Islamic, ABN Amro, ADIB, Amlak Finance, BarCap, DIB, DB, GIB, HSBC Amanah, KFH, Standard Chartered, Standard Bank, WestLB and Shamil Bank.

Bahrain-based Noriba snatched this year’s award, narrowly beating the 2005 winner, Gulf Financial House. Noriba, which was incorporated in 2002, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Switzerland’s UBS Group. According to CEO Toufic Kanafani, the bank’s investor base is international, with clients from the Gulf region, the wider Middle East, the US, Europe and South East Asia.

Stephan Theissing is the treasurer of Allianz as well as its head of corporate finance. He’s the man that investment bankers, looking for a share of the global financial group’s substantial capital markets activity, need to impress. Peter Koh finds out what they have to do to win his favour.

After losing out to its nemesis UBS in last year’s poll, Credit Suisse has reclaimed its title as best private bank in Switzerland. The bank attributes its success to the completion of a two-year root and branch reform of its core advisory process. “We started with in-house research that simply asked our advisors how they would define the Credit Suisse advisory process,” says Arthur Vayloyan, head of private banking in Switzerland at Credit Suisse. “What we found, which is probably what you would find in a lot of companies, was that when you ask 10 different people you get 10 different answers. This was a strong indication that we had to become much more rigorous about our advisory process. ‘We’ meant all of us, starting at the top; because it’s important for us to set an example and to be able to be a correcting factor, if necessary. Vayloyan: a more rigorous approach“Our advice strategy was a real step forward. At first we had internal resistance. It was such a basic thing that it raised a lot of eyebrows. People were asking: ‘We’ve been doing this very well for 150 years so why do we need to change?’ But the market changes every day so we needed to change too. Now if you ask our bankers: ‘What is the Credit Suisse advisory process?’ you get a much more coherent answer. It is key that our clients are all treated by the same standards but focussing on their individual needs when they first come to the bank."

The bond market might have underestimated the troubled issuer’s ability to realize investment-grade ambitions.

Cash management: A new model for Europe?