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Excitement over corporate hybrids has been replaced by hopes of a boom in M&A refinancing.

Weak execution caused by the end-of-year rush to issue was mostly limited to the CMBS sector. Execution lower down the capital structure suffered the most, with triple B notes hitting three-month Euribor plus 100 basis points, a level not seen for more than 18 months.

In December, the UK’s Financial Services Authority held a meeting with the Association of British Insurers setting out its position on securitization and reinsurance for life insurers. All year there had been talk of monetization being a big story. Legal and General has been rumoured to have mandated a structuring mandate, and Standard Life was looking at both new business strain and value in force (VIF) structures before being overwhelmed with the process of demutualization. There has been talk of VIF securitizations coming from France and the Netherlands. However, some originators argue that the cost effectiveness of this approach is far from proved and question whether the six months or so spent working on structures is worth it. Also the competitiveness of reinsurance has improved dramatically in response to the capital market, especially for one-year maturity. But for a five-year maturity, a reinsurance treaty is twice as expensive as a capital markets solution. It appears that the FSA is trying to give greater guidance to issuers and arrangers on how to streamline the process; there are hopes for as many as four deals in 2006.

With the Bombay Sensex, India’s benchmark index, hitting new highs, it is perhaps not surprising that December saw India’s second largest ever equity deal and one of the biggest deals in Asia in 2005. Leading private sector bank ICICI Bank raised more than $1.5 billion from a local and American depositary share offering through Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

Speak to any of the CROs working at EFG International and they are almost evangelical about the benefits of working for the Swiss-based firm.

The sales pitch for the EFG International IPO in October 2005 was that the bank would use the proceeds to continue to grow over the next three to five years at a comparable rate to the impressive expansion of the recent past.

The sukuk market has bucked the general trend of lack of supply in Islamic finance.

Tier 1 perpetual CMS-linked products, once in high demand from private investors, have shown their dark side. Some deals have lost 20% of their value. Their highly illiquid nature means investors could be left high and dry. How did these inappropriate products come to be sold to an unsuitable investor base? Alex Chambers and Helen Avery report.

Everyone seems to be making the decision to seek alpha in foreign exchange, but what does that entail? Leading figures in the FX market debate how to combine systematic and discretionary risk allocation, the importance of choosing the right managers, understanding volatility and whether or not the sell side has helped the transition to alpha.

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.