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Investec's private bank is targeting a new client base in its domestic market ? it is going after schools.

A top-notch pension scheme and subsidized healthcare ensure employees love working for General Motors. But the costs place a huge strain on the finances of one of the world's biggest bond issuers. Smart financial engineering has eased investors' fears over these liabilities. But GM must now address weak profitability in the car business. Its financing arm can't bail it out for ever. Kathryn Tully reports.

Managing director, MYM Capital

Although mergers of large banks are relatively rare in Europe, it's a different story in private banking. M&A activity, including many small and medium-size transactions, is on the increase across the sector. Helen Avery reports.

It's bonus time ? and not everyone's going to be as lucky as Goldman Sachs trader Driss Ben-Brahim, who has just landed a reputed £30 million.

In December, GM outlined a revised strategy designed to deliver at least a 9% return at its pension plans, including increased allocation to such asset classes as emerging-market debt, high-yield bonds and real estate while reducing global equity allocation to less than 50%. Some commentators feel that investing in more exotic asset classes and using hedge fund managers with the aim of reducing volatility is slightly odd. But GM treasurer Walter Borst insists that investing in additional asset classes will add to diversification and so reduce volatility on a portfolio basis. "We can do this because we have such large assets under management and expertise in house," he says. "Some people have said that by investing in some of these asset classes we must be adding risk. Well, some of the items might be more or less risky, but we like to think we're a little more sophisticated than that."

Companies with a higher representation of women in senior management positions financially outperform companies with proportionally fewer women at the top, according to a new study by Catalyst, a research and advisory organization working to advance women in business.

Key technology issues facing CFOs this year were largely the same as last year, with the top two issues cited remaining as prioritizing technology investments and identifying the appropriate level of technology investment.

The cost of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for US-domiciled European companies is an issue CFOs need to address; and address soon. 2005 is fast approaching, and delays will prove expensive.

IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards), which will be mandatory for EU-listed, Australian and certain Russian companies from 2005, makes constant reference to value: recoverable value, residual value, fair value and so on. Entities are now formally required to evaluate for all assets whether the future economic benefits expected justify the value attributed to the asset. Of course, entities were always required to consider whether the carrying value of an asset in the accounts was appropriate, but now this process will be more transparent.

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOx) news might regularly dominate headlines in the US but will similar legislation be enacted around the world? According to a recent survey by GTNews, only 48% of western European respondents thought other geographical locations should adopt Sarbanes-Oxley style legislation, compared to 59% for global respondents.