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For New Yorkers 'wait' is like the f-word, but in recent weeks they've had to display uncharacteristic patience.

As Oscar Wilde said, there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. For structured finance professionals, there can't be much that is more gratifying than being talked about at the annual Global ABS summit in Barcelona. With anyone who is anyone in attendance, it's the ultimate confirmation of your status in the industry. So when US monoline insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC) announced in June that it had hired Rick Watson, formerly head of ABS and CDOs, structured capital markets, at HSBC in London, the timing was perfect. The news went round the Hotel Arts and the adjoining bars and beach-clubs and Watson was a celebrity.

For years, Thai Military Bank remained an anomaly in Thailand's financial sector. Founded by the armed forces to provide financial services for their personnel, the bank has struggled with both its business and identity. Having just completed Thailand's only three-way banking merger, management aims to change all of that.

Asset managers' clients are increasingly demanding specialist input to mandates. It's a demand best met by boutiques or big firms that have set up boutique-like teams. Deutsche Asset Management has been tardy in responding to these pressures. It is now changing its style, but has it left it too late?

Professional services

Wealthy Americans are getting more demanding when it comes to investment advice. Independent advisers claim to have tapped significant client defections from full-service brokers. The brokers say this is not happening. What's clear is that objective advice is a crucial selling point. Brokers need to do more than pile up new product offerings and must focus on their strengths, being prepared to offer their competitors' expertise when they lack it themselves.

As Euromoney goes to press, Santander is set to take over the UK's Abbey National, propelling the Spanish bank into the frontline of European retail banking. But the past won't go away for Santander chairman Emilio Botín. The Spanish courts have ruled that he has serious charges to answer. At the same time minority shareholders who harangue him at Santander's AGM are planning to put their case to Abbey investors in London. Ben Sills reports from Madrid.

Equity markets

In the past two years, Swedish private-equity house Industri Kapital has endured a protracted and difficult fund-raising process for its fifth fund, which ultimately closed at just a third of the original e2.5 billion target size. But after responding to investors' concerns by returning to its small to medium mid-cap focus and achieving a string of highly lucrative exits this year, the future looks brighter.

David Murrin isn't a run-of-the-mill hedge fund manager. His Soros-style investment strategies might not be for everyone and might appear daunting at first. After graduating with an honours degree from the University of Exeter in physics with geophysics, he spent two years working in oil exploration in the jungles of Papa New Guinea, living and working with local tribes and beginning to formulate personal theories on collective emotional behaviour. These have enabled him to develop a unique method of analyzing behavioural patterns in the markets. By his 30th birthday, Murrin wanted to be running his own business. In preparation, he spent the next seven and a half years at JPMorgan gathering skills in price prediction and modelling. He traded the major bond, interest rate, bullion, FX and equity index markets and founded and managed the European technical analysis group there. He co-founded Emergent Asset Management with Susan Payne in 1997.

Not satisfied with issuing Russia's first investment grade bond and its first securitization, Gazprom has closed a $1.1 billion loan ? the largest since Russia's 1998 financial crisis.

SOCRAM has mandated BNP Paribas and Natexis Banques Populaires to lead-manage its new floating rate senior benchmark issue. The French company, dealing in automotive financing for French automotive mutual insurers, has issued a five-year bond with a coupon of 35 basis points over three-month Euribor. This issue enables SOCRAM to finance growth and refinance its debt profile.