Search results for

Australia's mutual fund industry is set for a bonanza over the next decade, with assets under management forecast to reach a total of US$1.32 trillion by 2015.

Investors' enduring interest in hedge funds was apparent from record inflows last year. But outperformance of cash equities was already becoming difficult to achieve. This year things could get even tougher for hedge funds unless they can find ways to adapt to a bull market. Julie Dalla-Costa reports.

The European equity-linked market generated over e9 billion in convertible redemptions in January, which is almost a third of what is expected in maturities and puts through the whole of 2004.

With its standardized documents boosting efficiency and liquidity in European investment-grade lending, the Loan Market Association (LMA) now wants to repeat the trick in the burgeoning leveraged market.

A $5 billion loan is not to be dismissed lightly in a country where foreign investment is running at just $1 billion a year. But the mystery benefactor is a company whose name rings no bells and whose principal investors have yet to be identified. It could only happen in Turkey. Metin Munir reports.

Quality borrowers got away a lot of issues last month, but investors are getting more choosy, especially about dollar bonds. Rising interest rates and an equity revival also raise uncertainties about the year to come. Mark Brown reports.

The scores for this year's Poll of Polls were compiled using league tables and Euromoney surveys published in 2003, as outlined below.

Valuing private banks for M&A transactions is a complex process, and not one that is unanimously agreed upon. Sebastian Dovey, head of consulting for Scorpio Partnership, thinks it is not enough to look merely at assets under management when putting a price on private banks. "Looking at AUM and the level of wealth per client is not a telling sign of the company's value. You could end up with wealthy clients who are all very old, and want their money to stay static." In this case, the buyer may have overestimated the transaction-based fees that should be achieved from the acquisition.

Deutsche regains top spot in Euromoney's poll of polls, while UBS and JPMorgan close in on Citigroup as it falls to second place. Andrew Newby reports; research by Andrew Newby, Paul Pedzinski and David Skalinder.

Highlighting Saudi Arabia's commitment to opening its banking sector to foreign investment, Deutsche Bank and HSBC are set this year to establish majority-owned investment banking operations in the kingdom.

Josef Ackermann (pictured) says his trial is an "image problem for Germany, for Deutsche Bank and for me – in that order". This is certainly true, but almost underplays its significance. The trial has become a flashpoint for those opposed to attempts to overhaul Germany's creaking economic model.

Moroccan negotiators tried to exclude wheat from the proposed free trade pact with the US – and failed – but one flourishing export from Morocco was not discussed at all, even though the country is the world's largest producer.