Search results for

Bulgaria’s new government is preparing to enter the Eurobond markets to reduce its debt service costs. The country’s strong recovery from the banking collapse and economic setbacks of 1996 and 1997, its recent currency stability and commitment to EU convergence should win it a strong reception among investors. But concerns persist over the credibility of the government’s ambitions to balance the budget, cut taxes and increase spending all at the same time.

In an economic downturn, law firms specializing in financial business can ease the pain by establishing relations with their clients that are not strictly based on individual deals. The clients may also benefit.

A small group of western-minded business leaders have banded together to lobby for a Russia free from robber barons and fit for their children by the year 2015.

On August 13, the two-year versus 30-year US treasury yield curve gapped out to a seven-year high of 184 basis points. The two-year treasury was trading at its lowest ever yield in the 25 years since the two-year security was first introduced, and three-month Libor was even lower at 3.57%. Moreover, with the US economy showing no signs of recovery, short-end rates seem set to move even tighter. The extraordinary steepness of the US yield curve has provided mouthwatering swap opportunities for corporates that would not normally consider conversion of fixed-rate liabilities to floating rate. The greater than normal swap business has also put added downward pressure on swap spreads.

Anti-globalization protesters have dogged meetings from Seattle to Prague in recent years and now threaten to turn Washington DC into a war zone at this year’s already curtailed IMF and World Bank meetings. Even some of the protest groups are getting scared about turning up. People are starting to feel that the meetings as we know them will soon be a thing of the past and are wondering what form they will take.

The UAE’s capital markets have been neglected by the federation’s own high-net-worth individuals while foreign investors have been excluded from many sectors. However, the rich are likely to invest more at home in the wake of market volatility elsewhere and foreigners may also be attracted by such deals as Emirates Airlines’ bond. But much remains to be done to develop local markets.

Euromoney's September edition had already gone to press when news broke of the horriffc terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The sheer scale of the destruction and loss of life numbs the mind, making rational analysis almost impossible. Financial markets consist of nothing more than men and women buying and selling. In the immediate aftermath few could turn their minds to anything so mundane as dealing or stock tipping. It's likely that every reader of Euromoney will have known people who worked in the World Trade Centre and it is with those unfortunate individuals that most people's thoughts now lie.

The February currency crisis has left Turkish banks bereft of capital. Disciplines imposed after the December 1999 IMF stand-by agreement mean that they are unable to replenish their reserves in the time-honoured way – by lending to the government. Underlying the sector’s particular problems – the only answer to which seems to lie in consolidation and foreign investment – is a generalized economic quagmire in which flounders a discredited political elite. There is little optimism to be found among those in the know in Turkey and the most pessimistic predict that a third crisis is just around the corner.

Hong Kong is facing a crisis - how to fund an increasing budget deficit at a time of almost unprecedented economic downturn.

Despite the dire state of the Japanese economy, yen-denominated issues have maintained their popularity, providing borrowers useful diversity and a domestic investor base hungry for yield.

Erste Bank sets its sights on large local corporates, a less coveted market for regional expansion, but one that could prove to have greater potential.

President Putin’s has pushed through a swathe of reforming laws, spearheading his drive to liberalization. But implementation will not be easy. Nor can it be assumed that the liberals will stay in the ascendancy. Business oligarchs and the conservatives are asserting themselves as Putin struggles to pick a way through conflicting interests.