Search results for

Just got home from a hard day's work? Why not heat up some leftovers, make a cup of coffee and - during those few idle seconds - punch a few buttons on the microwave door and get your bills paid.

The IFC and World Bank have spent much of the last two decades at each other's throats. The appointment of Peter Woicke as head of the IFC and a managing director at the Bank should change that. It should also help increase emphasis on private-sector funding. James Smalhout reports.

Sir,

Euroland's biggest banks? Assets (€bn)

When a Wall Street law firm was asked to advise on investing in Hungary in 1989, it fell to Douglas Rediker, then a 30-year-old attorney, to do the research. "When we asked the opinion of a Hungarian lawyer," Rediker remembers, "we'd get back a hand written note saying: 'Dear Mr Rediker, It is okay to do what you ask.' It didn't give us a whole lot of comfort. On the other hand it was quite intriguing."

A new symbol for promoting shareholder rights has emerged in Russia - the toilet roll. The lavatorial necessity graced Russia's TV screens nearly everyday in the last week of March. It was part of an ad campaign by American investor Kenneth Dart in his battle against Russia's second-largest oil company, Yukos.

What happens when you get Australian bankers on a beach for a barbecue? Euromoney invited five of Australia's top debt market professionals to Nielsen Park beach to find out. Steven Irvine put some prawns on the barbie.

Chase: Back in the bulge-bracket

The Philippines began to woo a new set of investors in February with the launch of a euro-denominated bond. The issue is not without its critics and it was made amid mixed reviews from bankers of the country's efforts to pull itself out of the Asian crisis. Gill Baker reports.

The EBRD's shareholders demanded that the bank be big in Russia. The investment bankers running the place responded by making deals. The result? €261.2 million ($284 million) of losses last year more than half due to provisioning against the Russian portfolio. New president Horst Köhler says that strategy not volume must drive programmes in future - corporate governance, institution building and lending to small enterprises are his top priorities. But below him not a single head has rolled even though EBRD bankers sat on the boards of Russian banks that went under. Only in a public institution would they get off so lightly. Brian Caplen reports.

Pfandbriefe: Germany's secret gamblers

Bank privatization is finally underway in Romania. But the government needs to do much more to stave off financial crisis and reinvigorate a moribund economy