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SovRisc is capital markets disintermediation and may transform the $50 billion export loan guarantee business.

Hidden issuers are using swaps rather than bonds

Recognition and protection of shareholders’ rights has rarely been a top priority for senior management of emerging-market corporates. The lack of any serious attention to shareholder rights in China is further hindered by an alphabet soup mix of shareholder classes – each with its own complex set of regulations. Although many emerging equity markets operate under foreign ownership restrictions and two-tiered share ownership structures, the Chinese system is perhaps the most elaborate. More important, proposals to attempt radical reform of the regulatory framework – such as the elimination of an entire class of shares – might hit foreign equity holders with an immediate loss, thus injecting into the market even more uncertainty about the near-term outlook for increased foreign participation. Here are some of the most commonly used market terms.

Cantor Fitzgerald offshoot BGC is being coy about the apparent closure of its spot FX broking business.

Tensions between Venezuela and Mexico are escalating following a war of words that began at last month’s Summit of the Americas trade meeting. Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez called Mexico “an ally of the empire” and “a puppy of the United States” for backing George W Bush’s plan to create a region-wide free trade zone.

Hurricane Katrina blamed for extreme changes in cross-border flows.

Methodology

There’s little to choose between the world’s two heavyweight institutional fund managers as they square up to fight for profitability. BGI and SSgA both have commendable records and both are now testing out new strategies.

Fast food chain McDonald’s has come under pressure from an activist hedge fund to restructure. Pershing Square Capital Management wants the company to spin off two-thirds of its restaurants and borrow $14.7 billion against its real estate to buy back shares. McDonald’s dismissed the idea as a “financial engineering exercise”.

“It’s nearly impossible to say which one you would choose when they go head to head in a pitch for passive mandates. They’re 10-ton gorillas that joust at the top.”

The procedure is an important step towards the cash settlement of the entire CDS market.

Brazil's hedge funds break through