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Despite Baillie Gifford?s lack of corporate activity, the firm has set up several joint ventures. Amin Rajan, CEO at research firm Create, says: "JVs fit well with the structure and it?s a sign of growing confidence."

Merrill Lynch (Bank) Suisse is the largest of Merrill's onshore international businesses, with $11.16 billion assets under management. Regarded as separate from the GPC business, the Swiss bank has been re-establishing links with it over the past two years in a bid to boost business. "While the Swiss bank wasn't making a loss, assets had settled to about $9 billion and stayed there," says Nick Stonestreet, who became CEO of the Swiss bank in July last year. "There were many things that needed addressing, such as service quality, but the most important move in the last year has been a reconnection to Merrill Lynch GPC. Before that we tended to stand alone."

Merrill's asset management business, MLIM, is getting back to its retail roots. Originally established in the US to serve the private-client business, MLIM grew, in part by the acquisition of mercury Asset Management in the UK, to become an institutional asset manager. Now, says Bob McCann, vice-chairman of the wealth management group that comprises GPC and MLIM: "We have developed a third-party retail business that is profitable and growing fast."

Rapid growth in the asset-backed commercial paper market has stretched liquidity lines. Sponsors have therefore begun to develop innovative new structures to cope with the problem

European corporates are making the most of burgeoning demand in the US private placement market. This raises the profile of the asset class but is hampering the development of an equivalent market in Europe and might be prompting banks to oversell issuers.

Wary investors and a growing equity issuance backlog have spelt disappointment for many of the issuers that have made it to market. IPOs have been particularly hard hit, prompting advisers and bookrunners to devise processes that offer more reliable pricing and greater flexibility.

www.breakingviews.com

July's global bond offering from the Hong Kong SAR was the first issue since colonial days and the first ever in US dollars

Both BNP Paribas and Barclays Capital are beefing up their push into the highly competitive US fixed-income markets by setting up new regional offices there to get closer to key institutional clients. Barclays Capital CEO Bob Diamond opened his bank's new institutional sales office in Boston at the beginning of last month and BNP Paribas set up a fixed-income institutional sales desk in San Francisco at the end of June.

RBC has gone golf mad. As homage to the winner of the Masters Tournament 2003, Canadian-born Mike Weir, RBC Royal Bank has launched a credit card in his name. The RBC Mike Weir Visa Card offers clients golfing-related rewards for points. Cardholders can use their points, for example, towards green fees or receive offers from some of Canada?s top golf courses. RBC Royal has also just announced that cardholders can enter a contest to win a round of golf with Weir himself at his home course of Taboo in Ontario. ?I?m glad to join with RBC in a venture that rewards golf devotees,? says Weir, who is currently on the PGA Tour, but the pressure is on. RBC has promised that cardholders will be awarded extra reward points for every victory Weir clocks up. Cardholders have already nabbed themselves 500 points for Weir?s win at the Nissan Open in February. And if he wins one of the majors or the Bell Canadian Open in September, cardholders will receive a bonus 1,000 points. They will have to cross their fingers, though. Weir tied a mere ninth at the British Open in July. Devoted fans are confident, however, that he?ll do better on home ground in September.

Multi-voiced impressionist Rory Bremner provided the laughs among the backslapping at Euromoney?s Awards for Excellence dinner in London last month.

Fund managers are increasingly pessimistic about global growth expectations, inflation is still a concern and only bullishness on Japan bucks the trend, according to Merrill Lynch?s latest research.