Governance, Regulation & Compliance

Trends | Inversions
The US Treasury Department’s recent rules against corporate inversions are intended to stop “serial inverters.”

Singapore has overtaken Hong Kong as Asia’s top financial center and now ranks third globally behind London and New York. This is the key takeaway from the latest Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), a ranking by British commercial think-tank Z/Yen Group.

Tax Reporting & Compliance
The OECD’s “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” principles are being incorporated into tax laws in some nations, requiring more transparency from corporate treasury departments.

As the commercial world becomes more litigious, individuals and corporations are increasingly hamstrung from pursuing justified legal claims by a lack of liquidity or other means of financing.

We present a rare tour of the newly opened Iranian banking sector.  Westerners will be surprised by what they find—in both philosophy and performance—in this long-hidden area of the banking world.

In April the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) commemorated a quarter-century of history, with president Suma Chakrabarti emphasizing how far the Bank had come since its first investment—to WBK Bank in Poland (now Bank Zachodni WBK).

Bank of China, the fourth-largest bank in the world, has been an ener-getic leader in expanding overseas. In an interview with Global Finance, Chen Siqing, the bank’s president, spoke about internationalization efforts and the importance of overseas growth. 

Nordea Chief Financial Officer Heikki Ilkka, appointed in December after many years with Ernst &Young, talked with Global Finance editors about how the bank is handling negative interest rates and regulatory challenges, and how it deploys technology to satisfy its customers.

Strong growth and other upbeat data in 2015 bucked the West’s collective vision of a nation in crisis. But without structural reforms, the picture may darken.

Low oil prices are taking a heavy toll on Saudi Arabia’s economy, which is facing even greater austerity under deputy crown prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud’s plans to raise $100 billion a year from subsidy cuts and new levies.

He’s a kickboxer and a football fanatic, an accomplished pianist and possibly the next president of France—and only 38.

While Latin American economies are expected to shrink by roughly 1% this year, Mexico is slated to grow 2.2%.

Few places on Turkey’s coasts have managed development quite as well as the former ancient Greek port city of Halicarnassus, today Bodrum.

The banking industry’s leading lights have largely adjusted their business plans to a world of tighter regulations, higher capital requirements and less leverage. Now, they are taking on new competitors by embracing the very information technology that has disrupted their business.

The US Treasury’s latest measure to keep US companies from reincorporating in lower-tax countries is its strongest effort yet to halt so-called “inversions,” and could have far-reaching consequences for multinationals.

US: At 42, he is a former banker, a former bailout czar and a former politician. He wants to persuade the public, from Wall Street to Main Street, that large banks pose a risk to the economic system. The risk is too high, he says, and must be eliminated—surely not a minor feat, not even for one of the presidents of the mighty Federal Reserve.

On May 9, voters in the Philippines will elect a new president amid growing concerns over whether the strong legacy of president Benigno Aquino III will continue.

President Jokowi is a radical departure from Indonesia’s political and military elite, which perhaps explains why he is such a populist leader at home. But foreign investors find him difficult to read.

Jim Rossman is managing director of the corporate preparedness group at Lazard, the M&A advisory and asset management giant. A former M&A lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Rossman talked with Global Finance about how to fend off hostile takeovers—mainly in the US, but also in Europe and emerging markets.

Milestones | Argentina
As Argentina prepares to launch a new bond issue in April, marking its return to international capital markets, investors are once again turning their attention to Buenos Aires, which has known 15 years of isolation.