Global news and insight for corporate financial professionals
Options backdating Already a handful of corporate heads have rolled as a result of the options backdating scandal. If regulators and shareholders get more aggressive, that could be just the tip of the iceberg. Options backdating has been the corporate ...
Annual survey/ world’s best project finance banks Global Finance selects the winners from among the leading banks that create and implement financing plans for major projects around the world. The project finance market is buzzing with activity, especially in Europe, ...
COUNTRY REPORT / RUSSIA Both Russian and foreign-owned businesses are finding the country’s rapid economic growth is a double-edged sword. On October 28 Volkswagen CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder and Russia’s economy minister German Gref laid a foundation stone together, as the ...
REGIONAL FOCUS / MIDDLE EAST New refineries and petrochemical facilities will squeeze more value out of the country’s crude oil and form the basis for a network of industrial complexes. Project finance activity is booming in the Middle East, with ...
COUNTRY REPORT / BRAZIL As Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva embarks on his second term, investors are increasingly demanding stronger growth and more reforms. As much of Brazil was focusing on a heated presidential election in late October, ...
Corporate toolbox / transition management The need for greater transparency and clearer profits is pushing pension funds to look for specialists to handle the delicate work of managing a shift of assets. Pension funds face a changing world. With greater ...
News Merrill Lynch analyst Richard Bernstein is bullish on consumer stocks in emerging markets. One of the prime rules of long-term wealth building, he says in a recent research report, is to be the provider of scarce capital. An investor ...
China China registered a record high trade surplus of $23.8 billion in October, surpassing most analysts’ predictions and intensifying pressure for further exchange rate reform and increased market access. Import growth slowed to its lowest level in 15 months, as ...
Company To Watch: China Life Insurance/china China Life Insurance, which accounts for nearly half of the life-insurance market in China, has been one of the top-performing depositary receipt issues in the world so far this year, with a gain of ...
Russia Putin: Due to step down in 2008 Russia will likely take a big step closer to finally joining the World Trade Organization before the end of the year, after the United States and Russia reached an agreement in principle ...
Dr News KazMunaiGas Exploration Production, a subsidiary of the Kazakh state oil and gas company, raised $2.03 billion in the largest initial public offering in the country’s history. KazMunaiGas sold 40% of the subsidiary in an offering of shares locally ...
Brazil A jubilant President Lula As Brazilian president Luiz In醕io Lula da Silva begins his second term in office on January 1, following an October 29 run-off victory, analysts are speculating about what the focus of his new administration will ...
India In what is the largest-ever acquisition by an Indian company, Tata Steel, India’s second largest steel maker, has bid £4.55 ($8.67) a share for a majority stake in Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus Group. The Corus board of directors approved the ...
Annual survey/ world’s best project finance banks Global Finance selects the winners from among the leading banks that create and implement financing plans for major projects around the world. The project finance market is buzzing with activity, especially in Europe, ...
Global Narain: Transparency needed There has always been a kind of love/hate relationship between corporates and analysts. The leading FTSE companies are always happy when analysts talk up positive results and forecasts for their companies, but no one wants to ...
United States Cash in hand: Clamp down on bribes The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice have stepped up their enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a federal statute that prohibits the payment of bribes ...
Foreign Exchange A growing number of central banks are diversifying their foreign currency reserves away from the dollar and into the British pound, the euro and the yen. While it’s an old story, the issue is still a sensitive one ...
Corporate Debt As Asian Economies Heat Up,Companies Rush To Raise Equity, Producing Record Wave Of IPOs Industrial & Commercial Bank of China’s $21.9 billion stock issue on October 27 was the world’s largest initial public offering ever and brought the ...
Corporate Debt A global wave of leveraged buyouts, which are financed with large amounts of high-yield bonds, is pushing the total of less-than-investment-grade debt to a record high this year. By early November more high-yield debt had been issued worldwide ...
Mergers & Acquisitions Announced hostile mergers and acquisitions of companies based in Europe in the first 10 months of this year set a record of $334 billion for the year-to-date period, more than triple the $100 billion in the same ...
United States In the weeks leading up to the US midterm elections this year, business interests were bemoaning their fate should the Democrats take control of Congress. Now that the thinkable has happened, the stock market is setting new highs, ...
Nicaragua Daniel Ortega then … Former Nicaraguan guerrilla leader Daniel Ortega, one of the most outspoken foes of the US during his first administration in the 1980s, will be sworn in as president in January after a November 5 election ...
India / united states Infosys CEO Nandan M. Nilekani The first Indian company to trade on the Nasdaq in 1999, IT services company Infosys is expected to enter the elite Nasdaq 100 index when it issues 30 million ADRs. Bundeep ...
NANCY PELOSI, a California liberal, is in line to become the first-ever female speaker of the House. President Bush invited her to lunch at the White House two days after the election. Pelosi has pledged to fight for legislation to ...
