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New York state attorney general Eliot Spitzer braved the wrath of sell-side analysts in person at Institutional Investor's equity research awards dinner last month. The self-appointed protector of retail investors was the guest speaker. He didn't pull his punches. He was glad to have been invited, he said, because "I really wanted to put faces to emails".

Russia

Serbia

All the global cash management banks continue to concentrate on the small pool of top-tier multinationals where there are opportunities to cross-sell but where competition is most intense. These most demanding of cutomers are driving down margins. The global players might be overlooking other sources of revenue.

The Brazilian presidential elections were a triumph for democracy. The winner, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, became the first leftist ever elected president. And in an election notable for its transparency he won the largest ever share of the vote.

Securities lending

Banks and opportunity funds are lining up to benefit from an expected transfer of real-estate assets from cash-strapped corporates to investors. There’s one catch – some corporates aren’t in a hurry to sell.

Russia

The sale of a stake in Landsbanki to Samson will take place in two stages. Following the completion of a purchase agreement - due on around November 20 - 33.3% of the shares in the bank now owned by the state will be delivered to Samson. The remaining 12.5% stake will change hands a year later, bringing the state's stake in Landsbanki down from 48.3% to 2.5% by November 2003.

Japan

Multinationals stand to gain substantially from a reorganization of their treasuries to a regional structure and a rationalization of the number of cash management relationships. A regional structure allows for substantial cost reductions through better liquidity management, reduced treasury teams, and lower network maintenance costs. These benefits are big: according to a recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a 1% improvement in liquidity management could improve a corporate's share price by 120 basis points.

How much would you pay to dine with your CEO? Too much and you'll be seen as a creep, too little and you can wave goodbye to that promotion. That's the quandary facing Merrill Lynchers, who can bid for a tête-á-tête with Stan O'Neal - CEO in waiting.