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Wrestling with regulation

The guest list at the second anniversary party for Hong Kong boutique spa Sense of Touch is a Rolodex of the city's female business elite. As markets rise in the region, so it seems do the stress levels of female bankers, lawyers and other professionals. So they are beating a path to this little shop in SoHo for massages, facials and other pampering.

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With a history as old as the telephone itself, AT&T used to dominate US telecommunications. Now, after strategic blunders involving the disposal of key building blocks of business growth, its rump looks like a bite-sized takeover target. It might even have to sell at a discount to today's price.

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Banking is in the blood for Ariel Salama, global head of private banks at ABN Amro's wholesale clients business. For almost 300 years his family ran a bank that financed Egypt's cotton business, until the 1952 revolution forced closure and a move to Paris. There, his great-uncle, Maurice de Botton, (uncle to Gilbert de Botton, founding chairman of Global Asset Management) established Banque Générale du Commerce, where Salama began his banking career.

When Diageo offloaded its US Pillsbury food division to General Mills for stock in 2001, it did not expect still to be the biggest shareholder in General Mills three years later. But as pressure mounted to dispose of the stake, poor performance at Pillsbury, SEC investigations into General Mills and the overhang of the Diageo block held back the share price. It took an exceptionally well-structured and well-executed deal to overcome these obstacles last month.

As Singapore moves to meet the challenges of globalization and the greater influence of China and India, once-sleepy Temasek Holdings has been told to hike returns and promote a new vision. The result: frenetic activity.

Directors of treasury or finance in the US have enjoyed salary increases of 4.8% during 2004 compared to the average salary increase for finance professionals of 3.6%. According to a salary report by the Association of Finance Professionals (AFP), the US-based organisation for finance professionals, this stands barely above the national average for a salary increase in the US of 3.5%. But, as every finance executive knows, the question of salary and the question of bonus can be quite different. In 2004, in fact, the average executive bonus was equal to 33% of the employee's base salary.

A five-year battle between the European Commission and Germany came to a head in October as the commissioner for internal markets launched a lawsuit against the German government for flouting EU competition rules. The state has refused to offload its "golden share" in Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car maker, which prevents a hostile foreign takeover.

The SEC is pursuing more and more hedge fund abuses. It hopes that requiring managers to register, as passed by the regulator on October 26, will eradicate the problem. It won't. Investors need to see independent valuations.

"It's not true that you need to be bald to get on the board of Rathbone Brothers, but it helps." So says Andy Pomfret, who was promoted from finance director to chief executive at the private-client UK investment manager at the beginning of October, replacing Roy Morris. Pomfret was speaking at a Private Asset Management Conference in London alongside similarly bald colleague Richard Lanyon who heads investment management. The double act discussed the UK strategy and the push in the unit trust management business, which will contribute to group profits for the first time this year.