Search results for

More and more emerging countries are developing asset-backed securities markets as a way to improve on inefficient bank financial intermediation. The aim is to stimulate domestic investment, as well as to attract international investors that have long bought emerging-market issues backed by hard-currency receivables. With a little help from the IFC, mortgage securitization schemes are now running in Argentina and South Africa. The IFC has also helped develop more complex lease securitizations in Korea and Turkey. If securitization markets are to grow as big as those in Europe and the US, radical changes are needed in bankruptcy laws, regulation and standards of disclosure. James Smalhout reports

The euro-denominated corporate bond market kicked off last year in euphoric, uncritical mood. This year investors have become more choosy and demanding, and the glut of telecom issuance has distorted pricing. Ben Beasley-Murray reports

On mergers, the internet and competition

Fancy Taif rather than Tenerife for your next summer vacation? Reckon property prices in Riyadh have more upside potential than those in Rome? If so, why not take the next flight to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Although you’ll need a visa, you may soon be able to acquire one without jumping through the tortuous hoops of finding local Saudi sponsors prepared to vouch for your good character. Saudi Arabia, historically fortress-like in its approach to uninvited guests, is starting to open its doors to unlikely visitors. The Kingdom has just passed a new investment law described in a recent report published by the Saudi American Bank (Samba) as a “U-turn away from the old investment system”. It is also gearing up to give foreigners direct exposure to a stock market that has so far been accessible only via a single investment trust and (more recently) mutual funds. New legislation is being prepared that will allow foreign individuals to buy Saudi real estate. And senior Saudi policymakers are even talking seriously about more tourism – not just of the local, regional or religious variety, either. After all, the thinking seems to be, other Gulf economies have seen tourists landing on their shores, and survived. So if western visitors can be persuaded to dress sensibly, and to resist the alcoholic temptations of duty-free shops en route, where is the harm in encouraging a limited number of them to spend their dollars, pounds and euros in the Kingdom?

Abbey National's eye-catching mortgage-backed securitization (MBS) programme has touched a new height with its £2.25 billion ($3.375 billion) Holmes Financing 1, the largest ever securitization of European mortgages. Brian Morrison, the bank's director of treasury services and international, says making the bonds fully SEC registered opens up a vast investor base in the US. "This takes us into a new ball game, which is the really big market," he says.

Author: David Shirreff

Author: Julian Marshall

Author: Mark Piper

By adding strategic advisory and outsourcing capabilities to their core services, banks are dressing up traditional cash management and treasury offerings as ‘e-business solutions’. Are these pioneering moves into the new economy enough to win in a web-enabled world? Rick Butler reports

A piece of Hans Dalborg’s Nordic jigsaw is missing: the Norwegian one. His bid for Norway’s Christiania Bank is taking time to process. But MeritaNordbanken, the region’s biggest bank, is on a roll. It already has 9 million customers and 1.5 million of them are online. No wonder the big banks down south are eyeing his operation greedily.

The explosion in M&A and restructuring activity across Europe has triggered a transformation in the types of financing structures employed. Law firms are already restructuring themselves to take advantage of the shift. By Nigel Page

Author: Mark Mulligan Chile’s parliament is close to passing a law that started life as a proposal to protect minority shareholders but now covers everything from stock options and share buy-backs to control of the country’s banking sector.