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The publication of Turkey's first set of corporate governance guidelines and plans for a new index on the ISE measuring compliance are encouraging. But the high level of family ownership is an impediment to good practice.

It all looked propitious for FDI. The World Bank/IFC was touting it, reforms favouring foreign investment had been put in place and the opening of talks for EU accession seemed assured. Enter the element of destabilizing surprise that Turkey specializes in.

By Durraj Tase, Head of Capital Markets

Merrill Lynch is the corporate broking success story that everyone wants to replicate. This can clearly be seen from the fact that Morgan Stanley was not the first to decide to go shopping at Merrill for its corporate broking team.

The panic selling that hit high-yield bonds, high-yield currencies, and emerging-country debt and equity markets last month has utterly destroyed market consensus.

By George B. Challenor, Head of Investment Strategy, CSPB

Siemens Financial Services (SFS) has teamed up with UK securitization boutique SecDebt to try to bring SMEs and mid-cap companies to the capital markets. SFS and SecDebt reckon that between them they can cut the cost of issuing bonds backed by invoice debt in trade receivables-style deals.

Igor Yurgens, executive secretary of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, is a little wistful. “We used to have regular meetings with president Putin, roundtable discussions, normally in the presence of the prime minister and chief of staff,” he says. “We delivered a message, and usually he listened attentively, then we prepared a draft law if required. Then we’d work through bilateral committees and commissions.” But invitations from the Kremlin have got scarcer. “There has been a pause since the Khordorkovsky case,” Yurgens says. “We haven’t had any of these roundtable discussions since June last year. We had a chance to express some of our concerns to the president at our congress in October 2003, and that’s it. So now we’re waiting for a new meeting. It’s supposed to take place this month, and we’re hoping the dialogue will be resumed there. But at the moment, it’s pretty tense.”

Six years of haggling came to an end last month when Russia and the EU finally signed off on a bilateral trade agreement that clears away a major obstacle in Russia?s efforts to join the World Trade Organization.

Client Profile: UK resident and domiciled

Of the 10 countries to join the EU last month, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have been identified as offering the most opportunities for wealth managers. According to a report by Datamonitor, the relatively high national savings ratios in the three countries offer an encouraging sign to banks looking at entering the wealth management sector in central and eastern Europe. "In comparison to the UK, with a national saving ratio of 13.1%, individuals in all three countries save, on average, a far greater proportion of their disposable income," says the report.

By Chinatrust Commercial Bank - Asset Management Team