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Differential guidelines by Japanese regulators might provide room for accounting arbitrage. Japanese accounting rules have required banks and non-life-insurance companies to mark to market their portfolios since April 2002. However, the prefecture/locally run pension funds (such as those of Hokkaido and Saitama), and life-insurance companies (such as Nippon and Dai-ichi, or the Policeman Retirement Fund, and the Fisheries Association Fund) are not yet subject to the mark-to-market requirement. Market sources indicate that had it not been for such accounting arbitrage, it would have remained inexplicable why the local municipality pension fund of Hokkaido held a sizable amount of defaulted Argentine yen paper.

Real estate has traditionally been a localized business. Now developers are considering the costs and benefits of moving out of the comfort zone and going international, as Helena Keers reports.

After a long dormancy, Kazakhstan's equity market might be about to wake up, thanks to some large IPOs.

The Philippines has a robust consumer economy, fuelled by burgeoning remittances from overseas, so domestic banks have long offered one of the safest plays on the economy. Recent changes to banking regulations have further strengthened the case for the sector on fundamental grounds. Now fuelled increasingly by renewed takeover speculation as consolidation attempts gain traction, the sector looks set to outperform.

Research points to declining returns and greater risk as hedge funds grow older

SocGen's move on big local player signals confidence in the run-up to Egypt's first open presidential election

Croatian oil company INA will undertake a 15% initial public offering by the end of the year. Existing 25% shareholder and Hungarian peer MOL is keen to raise its stake to enhance its strategic position in the region.

The Unico network of cooperative banks is nearly 30 years old. As it approaches middle age, can it persuade European debt issuers that the concept of a Unico deal that reaches both big and small investors across the continent is more than a neat branding ploy?

Mexico has long been known for its big public companies: Televisa is the world's biggest broadcaster of Spanish-language programming, and wireless telephone group America Móvil has a reach that criss-crosses Latin America. But, with an illiquid stock market, Mexico falls short in providing financing for start-up firms that could be the region's Amazon.com or Apple, undermining the country's economic potential and shunning venture capitalists that are some of the most important providers of funding for small companies. "Mexico's problem is not a lack of capital or a lack of ideas, but a lack of local investors willing to take the necessary risks," says Howard Wallack, the recently appointed director of the Latin American Venture Capital Association (Lavca). "Mexico needs good business plans with the right people to execute them."

The price of oil might be heading towards $100 per barrel but that doesn't seem to be blunting some bankers' appetites for fuel-guzzling vehicles. Nor is their ability to make money necessarily linked to good taste when spending it, as evidenced by the recent purchase of a stretch Hummer by London-based Citigroup managing director Valentin Ehmer.

Governor of the Central Bank of Libya Ahmed Menesi talks to Kate Luxford about plans to prepare Libya's economy for a more competitive environment after privatization

Slow-paced reform and privatization look set to provide opportunities for foreign investment in the Libyan banking sector, but with a lot of provisos.