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Investor sentiment has soured dramatically over the past two months, with more fund managers now expecting growth to slacken and corporate profits to fall. A Merrill Lynch survey of 300 fund managers indicates that a net 32% are now negative about growth prospects and that a net 34% are negative about the corporate profit outlook, a significant turnround from March when investors were positive about growth and corporate profits by a net 11% and 4% respectively. Expectations have not been this low since 2001.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association held a gala dinner in London in May to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

United Utilities

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), domestic bond markets help to foster financial stability, reduce inflationary funding, improve financial intermediation and assist governments in managing the effects of volatility in the international economic and financial system. Khaled Fouad, senior vice-president, merchant banking at TNI, says: "In the absence of a debt market, any crisis in the banking industry will have a spillover effect and would likely require the government to step in and assume the burden in order to prevent the financial system from collapsing."

ECM syndicate merry-go-round BNP Paribas has hired Florence Sztuder from SG to replace Tom Kennedy, who left the bank in April, as head of equity syndicate.

Leveraged buyouts and auto company problems are taxing the minds of bond investors, but there's a more insidious form of event risk they should be wary of. Company executives, under pressure from boards and active investors including hedge funds, are starting to engage in financial engineering to try to boost their stock price. Bondholders are set to lose out. Antony Currie reports.

Raiffeisenbank International's CEO, Herbert Stepic, says he intends to use the profits from Raiffeisen's successful IPO on April 21 to bid for Aval Bank, the second-biggest bank in Ukraine. He says: "We are in good negotiations with the owners [private Ukrainian investors] and we hope to come to terms by the start of June." The deal would be one of RZB's largest acquisitions in eastern Europe. Aval Bank has the largest retail banking business in Ukraine, with total assets of €1.5 billion.

Investors snapped up the bonds on rarity value, as Germany went for an early deal

Negative returns

Commercial mortgage-backed securities are divided into tranches that pay off only when the tranche above has been paid. As issues do not have borrower recourse, the market is characterized by detailed rating agency analysis and investor due diligence. The main criterion used to evaluate deals are the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. In addition, debt service ratio and interest coverage ratio are also frequently used.

GMAC Financiera

The Chinese government is at it again. Having already spent at least $45 billion in what may well prove to be vainglorious attempts to fix the country's ailing state-owned banking system, the People's Bank of China (PBC) announced that the State Council has decided to part with another $15 billion of foreign exchange reserves to shore up the capital base of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, by assets, the nation's largest bank.