Unprecedented political stability and surging hydrocarbon exports have provided a platform for a remarkable recovery from the depths of Russia’s 1998 crisis, but structural problems linger. On February 11, UK oil giant BP announced it was investing $6.75 billion in ...
The long-awaited next phase in consolidation in the global custody industry has finally arrived. Deutsche Bank finally acknowledged it was not going to achieve the critical mass and profitability that it needed from the business and sold out to State ...
It’s a little bundle of letters and numbers, but it’s creating an awfully big stink. Those who set accounting standards met with their critics in March to discuss proposals to transform the way that companies report their financial assets, specifically ...
Caution is the watchword in a sluggish market for corporate takeovers. Throughout last year, observers of international M&A; predicted a bounce-back in deal volumes. It didn’t happen.According to data providers Thomson Financial, global announced deal value fell 28% in 2002. ...
A Russian programmer spotted a gaping hole in the market. First, let’s get the clichés out of the way. Anatoly Karachinsky is no ‘Russian Bill Gates’, nor yet the ‘oligarch of tech’. The 42-year-old president and CEO of Information Business ...
Global Finance selects the world’s best. The real-time global settlement process took a major leap forward in September 2002, when the CLS Bank went live, netting positions in a five-hour window in each 24-hour period. CLS, or continuous linked settlement, ...
Unprecedented political stability and surging hydrocarbon exports have provided a platform for a remarkable recovery from the depths of Russia’s 1998 crisis, but structural problems linger. On February 11, UK oil giant BP announced it was investing $6.75 billion in ...
The long-awaited next phase in consolidation in the global custody industry has finally arrived. Deutsche Bank finally acknowledged it was not going to achieve the critical mass and profitability that it needed from the business and sold out to State ...
Global Finance selects the world’s best. The real-time global settlement process took a major leap forward in September 2002, when the CLS Bank went live, netting positions in a five-hour window in each 24-hour period. CLS, or continuous linked settlement, ...
UNITED STATES “Mandatory expensing—using flawed valuation models—will lead to inaccurate and misleading information for investors.” —Ken Wasch, SIIA The norwalk, Connecticut- based Financial Accounting Standards Board agreed unanimously at its meeting in March to add to its agenda the controversial ...
DUBAI Which are braver—bankers or rugby players? The planners behind the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) must hope the former. As war loomed in March, not only did lily-livered golfers refuse to visit the emirate, but also the captain of ...
GERMANY Almost all stock exchanges are currently listless, but few are listingless. On March 21, however, Nasdaq Deutschland was launched and now shares with the ‘new market’ exchanges of Slovakia, Prague and Istanbul the dubious distinction of hosting no listed ...
UNITED KINGDOM Troubled UK telecoms group Marconi had its long-term credit rating cut to D in March, warned that its sales may decline further and handed over 99.5% of its equity to creditors. But lawyers and advisers had reason to ...
THE AMERICAS Canadian Dollar Turns Suddenly Popular Rising interest rates, solid economic growth, a big trade surplus and strong commodity prices pro-pelled the Canadian dollar sharply higher in March. Why did the long-hapless loonie, as the Canadian cur-rency is known, ...
THE AMERICAS A surge in new issuance of high-yield bonds in the US market is being met by strong demand. Even Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, is buying. High-yield bond issuance in February surged to $8.75 billion, according to ...
SOUTH AFRICA Telkom, South Africa’s state-controlled telephone and wireless operator, listed its shares on the Johannesburg and New York stock exchanges on March 4. The long-delayed partial privatization included an unusual pricing scheme. Members of a group of South Africans ...
THE AMERICAS Devon Energy Moves Into Deeper Water Oklahoma City, Okla-homa-based Devon Energy agreed to merge with Ocean Energy of Houston,Texas, in a $5 billion stock-swap trans-action.As a result, Devon Energy will become the largest US-based indepen-dent oil and natural ...
UNITED STATES “The global slowdown has helped us. Carriers are used to buying from providers that cost five times more.” —Mike Gallagher, Flarion Flarion Technologies is a company without any revenues and without any paying customers. But the four-year-old New ...
THE AMERICAS Canadian Dollar Turns Suddenly Popular Rising interest rates, solid economic growth, a big trade surplus and strong commodity prices pro-pelled the Canadian dollar sharply higher in March. Why did the long-hapless loonie, as the Canadian cur-rency is known, ...
TURKEY Who’s afraid of war? Certainly not the 200 brave souls who packed into the Hilton Hotel in Istanbul to attend the first ever Caspian Banking & Finance Summit on March 19. There was one notable absentee on the first ...
NORWAY “The sizes of our stakes in global companies have increased, and so we will gain from being more active.” —Knut Kjaer, Norwegian central bank Grow too big, and there’s just no way you can huddle away from an ill ...
UNITED STATES No one can accuse Representative Michael Oxley, the Ohio Republican of Sarbanes- Oxley fame, of shunning the media spotlight.The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee was back in the headlines in March, when he turned his fire ...
SINGAPORE Whether they’re jumping or being pushed, a steady stream of executives are leaving their posts at Singapore Inc. Most recently, in mid-March, Chris Matten resigned as managing director of Temasek Holdings, an investment company owned by the Singapore government ...