25th Anniversary

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE...   By Laurence Neville   There is a famous quote by British novelist LP Hartley that goes, "The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there."   If this is so, then 1987—when Global Finance was launched—is ...

MECHANISMS OF GROWTH   By Antonio Guerrero   Twenty-five years ago, Goldman Sachs' Jim O'Neill was still more than a decade away from coining the acronym BRIC to identify the high-growth markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China—an event which signaled ...

STORMY WEATHER By Gordon Platt   When volume 1, number 1 of Global Finance arrived at the airport in London on October 15, 1987, it could not immediately be offloaded.   The precious cargo was needed as ballast in the airplane ...

CHANGE IS IN THE AIR   By Jonathan Gregson   The emergence of universal banks fueled the trend toward globalization over the past 25 years, but the recent crises have been their undoing.   In the past 25 years major banks ...

REVOLUTION   By Laurence Neville   The scale of the crisis that has engulfed much of the world since 2008, which—like a virus—has mutated from a financial sector crisis to an economic crisis to a sovereign debt crisis, is so great ...

EVOLUTION   By Laurence Neville   Perhaps the defining characteristic of 2012—in contrast to 1987 when Global Finance launched—is the interconnectedness of the world.   Globalization spreads ideas and connects markets Those in the US now have more in common with ...

SUCCESSES   By Laurence Neville   A quick glance at the Fortune 500 for 1987 and 2012 reveals a number of similarities in the ranking of the largest companies in the US: ExxonMobil, GM, Ford, GE and AT&T all feature prominently ...

MODERNIZATION   By Justin Keay   Back in 1987 the main recipients of foreign direct investment were developed markets, plus some of Asia's miracle economies. Emerging markets barely featured. Today Russia and Poland are in the top 25 along with India, ...

DRIVE FOR DEMOCRACY   By Gordon Platt   Adel El-Labban, group CEO and managing director of Ahli United Bank, Bahrain, has had a major influence on Middle Eastern banking.   Global Finance: The past 25 years in the Middle East have ...

AFRICA UNBOUND   By Antonio Guerrero   Arnold Epke, group CEO at Ecobank, a pan-African bank founded in 1985 and with a presence in 32 countries, shares his insights on Africa's past, present and prospects.   Global Finance : How will ...

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT   By Udayan Gupta   David Wilton is chief investment officer and manager, global private equity, at theWorld Bank's IFC, with responsibility for its investment program in emerging markets funds globally. He is a member of the Pension ...

THE BIG PICTURE   By Anita Hawser   Herbert Stepic is the chief executive officer of one of the largest banking organizations in Central & Eastern Europe, Raiffeisen Bank International.   Global Finance : What are the key events over the ...

STRONG GROWTH PROSPECTS   By Valentina Pasquali   José Alberto Vélez is the president of Cementos Argos, the leader in the cement industry in Colombia, with operations in the Caribbean—Panama, the Dominican Republic and Haiti—and the United States.   Global Finance: ...

WILD RIDE   By Justin Keay   Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, launched the first Templeton Emerging Markets Fund 25 years ago. In May, Templeton Emerging Markets Group launched its latest emerging markets fund, the Templeton Africa ...

RISING TO THE MOMENT   By Paula Green   Martin Senn became chief executive officer of Zurich Insurance in January 2010 after joining Zurich as chief investment officer in 2006. A Swiss citizen and career international banker, he spent 18 years ...

SUSTAINING THE MIRACLE   By Anita Hawser   Mike Rees, CEO, wholesale banking, Standard Chartered, discusses the risks and opportunities for emerging markets going forward, and China's economic transformation.   Global Finance: What key events have shaped the current global economy? ...

TRANSITION AND TRANSFORMATION   By Valentina Pasquali   Saad Mohseni is the chairman of Moby Group, Afghanistan's largest media conglomerate. Mohseni founded the company in 2002 upon returning home to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.   Global Finance: What ...

EVOLVING RISKS   By Al Modugno   Steve McGill is group president of Aon plc and chairman and chief executive officer of Aon Risk Solutions. He oversees the development of Aon's overall growth strategy and opportunity planning.   Global Finance: What events over ...

THE SANDS OF TIME   By Valentina Pasquali   A look at how the fates have dealt with those firms that advertised in the October 1987 inaugural issue of Global Finance.   AT&T was bought by SBC Communications Are your overseas ...

WHO'S REGULATING THE REGULATORS?   By Justin Keay   Regulation tends to be reactionary: Regulators get in on the game after events have already happened. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of a lot of the regulation introduced in the ...

TOOLS FOR MANAGING RISK, OR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?   By Gordon Platt   As companies looked to hedge their risks, a new asset class, derivatives, was born in the 1980s.   But over the years a number of substantial losses ...

CURRENCY CRISES AND CURRENCY WARS   By Gordon Platt   FX has withstood many crises, including speculative attacks on the British pound, the Mexican peso crisis, the Thai baht crisis and, more recently, a euro under strain and a potential threat ...

UNDERMINING THE CULT OF EQUITY   By Jonathan Gregson   As alternative investments become mainstream and returns diminish, the traditional bias toward equity investment is being challenged like never before.   Even before globalization became a major theme, big investors had ...

BEHIND EVERY CLOUD...   By Paula Green   Financial scandals, earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks and tsunamis generated some important lessons for the worlds of insurance and risk management. The challenge now is coming to grips with a world where vulnerabilities are expanding. ...

THE HUMAN FACTOR IN ECONOMIC THEORY   By Justin Keay   Traditional economic theory has been challenged by recent market events in global financial markets, and that challenge has given rise to a new generation of economic soothsayers who are looking ...

TRADING SIZE FOR VALUE   By Gordon Platt   Some of the biggest mergers in recent history—AOL and Time Warner, Vodafone and Mannesmann—show that such marriages aren't always made in heaven.   Dealmakers are now staring down a much smaller deal ...

THE LAST MILE IN AUTOMATION   By Anita Hawser   Over the past 25 years multinational corporations have made significant efficiency gains by centralizing treasury management operations, and thanks to the advancement—in quantum leaps—of treasury management software.   The Cloud is ...

SEXY AND SOPHISTICATED   By Anita Hawser   Oiling the wheels of global trade has never been more important, particularly as regulation and capital constraints challenge banks' commitment to the business.   Collaborative B2B platforms and investors are poised to play ...

TAKING CENTER STAGE   By Anita Hawser   After the financial crisis of 2008 and heightened regulation on "casino" banking, transaction processing is enjoying a renaissance.   Historically, investment banking has earned the most money for financial services providers and attracted ...

SUCCESSORS   By Justin Keay   Who would have predicted back in 1987 that Apple would today be one of the world's most dynamic and innovative companies? And Google, which emerged from nowhere back in 1998 but now dominates much more ...

Transformation   By Justin Keay   How things change. A list of the best business, economics and finance books compiled pre-crisis would probably have focused on up-and-coming Internet companies, how to make a fortune on the stock exchange, how to invest ...

INNOVATION   By Laurence Neville   No list of influential figures of the past quarter-century would be complete without Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, US president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher—the three most important figures in ending the key ...

INNOVATION AND CONSUMERIZATION   By Andrea Fiano   Carlo Bozotti has been the president and CEO of STMicroelectronics since 2005. His company, like Global Finance, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It is one of the world's leading electronics and ...

THE ASIAN CENTURY   By Thomas Clouse   Chandran Nair is the founder of independent think tank Global Institute for Tomorrow and co-founder and chairman of social investment firm Avantage Ventures.   Global Finance: What key trends defined the past 25 ...

PEARL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN   By Kim Iskyan   Channa de Silva heads up LR Global Sri Lanka Asset Management, a top Sri Lankan private equity firm. He was previously CEO of the country's Securities Exchange Commission and executive ...

GRAVITATIONAL PULL   By Michael Shari   A British veteran of Merrill Lynch, Charles Beazley became chairman and CEO of Nikko Asset Management, which is majority owned by Sumitomo Mitsui Trust, in March. Headquartered in Tokyo, Nikko AM manages $158 billion ...

REWARDING RISK   By Udayan Gupta   Edward Mathias is a member of the board of directors and a managing director and partner of the Carlyle Group, the global alternative asset management firm. He was instrumental in founding the group and ...

RESILIENCE UNDER PRESSURE   By Denise Bedell   Gerald Hassell is chairman, president and CEO of the Bank of New York Mellon. The bank, which focuses on investment management and investment services, has $26.6 trillion in assets under custody and administration, ...

INTERNATIONAL VISION   By Andrea Fiano   Guo Guangchang is the chairman of Chinese conglomerate Fosun Group. Fosun International was established in 1992 and now ranks among China's top 100 enterprises.   Global Finance: What key changes defined the past 25 ...

TURBULENT TIMES   By Gordon Platt   Ibrahim Dabdoub has been CEO of National Bank of Kuwait since 1983.   Global Finance: What are the key risks over the next 5, 10 and 25 years? Ibrahim Dabdoub: As a banker, I ...

SEARCHING FOR STABILITY   By Denise Bedell   James K. Galbraith is a well-known economist and author of a number of books, including The Predator State and Inequality And Instability. He spent much of his career helping to shape US and ...

DISINTERMEDIATION AND GLOBALIZATION   By Thomas Clouse   Piyush Gupta is CEO of Singapore's DBS Group Holdings and DBS Bank.   Global Finance: What have been the key financial trends since 1987? Piyush Gupta: On a global level, disintermediation, not just ...

HISTORY AT A CROSSROADS   By Valentina Pasquali   Rubens Amaral is the incoming CEO of Bladex, the Foreign Trade Bank of Latin America, a supranational institution that serves the capitalization needs of banks and promotes foreign trade across the region. ...

BREAKING BARRIERS   By Michael Shari   Yoshio Nakamura is the director general of Nippon Keidanren, the Japan Industry Federation—the main voice representing large industry in the country.   Global Finance: What developments have most shaped Japan’s economy over the past ...

A Time Of Profound Change   By Thomas Clouse   Zhang Jianguo is president and chief executive of China Construction Bank (CCB) .   Global Finance: How will China´s financial system change as interest rates liberalize, capital markets develop, and ...