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Awards for Excellence 2002

Awards for Excellence 2002

Awards for Excellence 2002

CENTRAL ASIA

NORTH AMERICA

There have been many means mooted for helping to raise money in the memory of those killed in the September terrorist attacks in New York but Barclays Capital has come up with one of the more apt, as well as more entertaining. At the end of last month, on Saturday, June 29 to be exact, the UK and US Barclays Capital football teams met up with the Fire Department of New York and New York Police Department football teams (they call themselves soccer teams, of course) for a four-way tournament played in New York's East River Park.

Investment banks have a genius for gobbledegook. Whether dressing up their activities in meaningless jargon to bamboozle their clients, or giving preposterous job titles to their people to make them feel more important, they are masters of the craft. It is a long time since the appearance of silly-sounding titles such as "global head" first raised a titter. And we have all become jaded by the serial abuse of language carried out by investment banks over the years.

The euro continues its recovery against the US dollar. Everything seems rosy in the EU garden. Dissatisfaction among citizens has not become a concerted anti-European platform. The extreme right in France has failed in elections and it is inconceivable that German dissatisfaction with the euro will spill over into actual opposition to it. The British government is growing increasingly confident about its ability to take the UK into monetary union. Above all, enlargement seems to be on target.

The growing involvement of institutional investors in leveraged loans is bringing liquidity and transparency to markets traditionally seen as clubby and opaque. As an asset class, leveraged loans have a lot going for them - despite the current dearth of supply. But there is still a lot of work to be done.

Corporates need bank liquidity more than ever as the capital markets can close suddenly. Bank providers sense an opportunity and loan volumes, though down, have remained healthy. But banks also need to shore up their defences or risk drowning in bad debt.

After Argentina, emerging-market professionals are facing up to the prospect of a default in Brazil. The effects could be so disastrous that collective action clauses in bond documentation are winning more and more favour. But broader IMF measures look necessary if such restructuring mechanisms are to work effectively.

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