Search results for

Foreign banks are trying to sell investment-banking services in Croatia but so far with limited success. Delays in state sell-offs and corporate restructuring aren't helping. By Charles Olivier.

Their mission is the same: to hunt down and execute mandates. They're all winners. Yet their tactics differ greatly, reflecting the varied cast of characters now reigning on Wall Street - tough New Yorkers, Cuban exiles, a laid-back Brazilian, an English lawyer, even a Senegalese photographer. Brian Caplen investigates the mix.

Different ways to skin a cat

George Jedlicka, managing director and chairman of Expandia Finance finds it hard to call Tomas Pardubicky, his colleague, Mr Pardubicky, as formality demands. It's understandable: Pardubicky is a fresh-faced 23-year-old who has been at Expandia just a year and confesses that he is still finishing a university degree. With a laugh, Jedlicka gives up, and reverts to the more familiar Tomas.

Different ways to skin a cat

Ukraine has been pushed to the brink by Russia's financial turmoil and the government's resistance to reform. The treasury bill market needs restructuring or there will be default, equity trading has ground to a standstill, and foreign investors are counting the days until they can get their money out of the country. Theodore Kim reports.

Different ways to skin a cat

Following in Russia's footsteps?

The career of a Russian politician is rarely boring. The head of Russia's federal tax service from May - and for six days in August deputy prime minister in charge of debt restructuring - Boris Fyodorov was sacked along with the rest of Sergei Kiriyenko's government in August. He has had two previous stints as finance minister under Victor Chernomyrdin both of which ended with his sacking. But he may well be a player in whatever government emerges from Russia's political crisis - in mid-September he was back as first deputy prime minister in the provisional government of Victor Chernomyrdin and was credited with authoring the Plan for Economic Dictatorship - which amounted to a call for inflation. Like many other Russian leaders he also plays in the financial markets. Along with US banker Charles Ryan, he founded the United Financial Group, one of Moscow's leading investment banks. He spoke to Ronan Lyons in late August.

Is it a correction rather than a crisis? Perhaps, but consider this sobering list of 31 crises, prepared by Tim Bond, a strategist at Barclays Capital. His conclusion? "A western equity market crash will complete this litany of disasters ... since [equities] are mispriced by most yardsticks and since their fundamentals are daily worsening."

Could it be true that Deutsche Bank was considering a bid for JP Morgan in mid-August? Deutsche was supposedly offering $175 a share in cash, 49% above the closing price the day before. But pooled accounting is forbidden by German law, so Deutsche's capital ratios would have fallen to an unsustainable and illegal level had the deal gone ahead. And Deutsche's recent history is hardly such as to endear Morgan's chief executive, Sandy Warner, and his senior staff to a link-up.

The restructuring of South Africa's unwieldy industrial and commercial structures may at last be picking up speed. Conglomerates seem more eager than before to unbundle, seek focus and pick up investments in complementary operations abroad. Richard Stovin-Bradford reports.