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Media sector deal values are predicted to reach €20 billion in 2004 and the number of transactions will exceed 100, according to the latest Media Insights report from PwC Corporate Finance.

Four months after a management shake-up at Chicago-based accounting firm BDO Seidman LLP, about 30 of 280 partners have been let go.

After over two years of doom and gloom in the corporate finance job market, things finally are looking up.

An improving U.S. economy, particularly a pickup in capital investment, growing demand for commercial equipment, and firming in selected real estate markets, bodes well for commercial finance companies in 2004, according to Standard & Poor's. It believes that if the economic improvement that began in the second half of 2003 stays on track, it should boost finance companies' asset quality, collateral values, profitability, and portfolio growth in the coming year.

Consultancy spending rose by 9.4% last year, helping UK consultants earnings to top the £10 billion mark for the first time, according to new figures from the Management Consultancies Association. The rate of growth - twice that recorded in 2002 - was driven in the last quarter of 2003 by outsourcing consultancy services, which grew by 4.8%. The growth reflected the ongoing trend towards OCS and IT related consulting, which has increased by 28% in the last twelve months and doubled in the last five years.

Today the FSA fined Robert Middlemiss, Company Secretary at Profile Media Group, £15,000 for market abuse.

Bank of America has announced the addition of Mark Oldcorn to its financial institutions group (FIG) for corporate and investment banking (CIB) in Europe. Oldcorn is appointed managing director and joins from Goldman Sachs where he was executive director in the European insurance debt capital markets team. Alberto Piedra, head of Bank of America's FIG CIB group for Europe, says: "Mark's appointment reaffirms the bank's commitment to Europe through the growth of its investment banking business and in particular that of the Financial Institutions Group, which has been ear-marked as a key area for expansion this year."

Israel's central bank, the Bank of Israel, is adopting SuperDerivatives, the foreign exchange option pricing system.

The bond markets set a record with $6.9 trillion in issuance during 2003, breaking the previous record of $5.4 trillion set in 2002.

Figures released yesterday by Ernst & Young and VentureOne revealed venture capital investment fell by just under a quarter between 2002 and 2003.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is beefing up its special counsel team with the appointment of no less than five fresh members. Justin Bickle, Yvette Croucher, Tony Horspool, Michael Kavourias and Pamela Landman will take up their roles in the Cadwalader's New York and London offices.

Accurate cash-flow forecasting still provides a headache for corporate treasurers and is prompting a drive to non-traditional short-term investments such as money market funds, according to a survey conducted by BDRC for ABN AMRO. Over four-fifths of respondents to the survey said cash-flows could be reasonably well-predicted over a time period as short as two-to-three days, but the predictions start to lose accuracy as the time period is extended. The causal factors include account receivables, payment timing and non-centralised cash management.