December 2010

COVER STORY: SEA CHANGE   By Jonathan Gregson   Africa's economic prospects have never been better.   Fifty years after British prime minister Harold Macmillan spoke of a wind of change sweeping across the African continent, the sort of development ...

COVER STORY: IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT   By Anita Hawser   Emerging Asia has consolidated its role as the most powerful engine of global economic recovery—but threats to the region's growing prosperity remain.   The first thing British prime minister ...

COVER STORY: HARD TIMES   By Justin Keay   A sustainable recovery remains as elusive as ever for many of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.   Before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the ...

COVER STORY: MUTUAL BENEFITS   By Antonio Guerrero   Latin America is enjoying growing prosperity as the region develops ever-stronger economic ties with Asia.   When Chinese President Hu Jintao took his first tour of Latin America in 2004, he ...

COVER STORY: INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT SUSTAINS GROWTH   By Gordon Platt   High oil prices are keeping government spending flowing strongly into major projects, while debt-laden Dubai has taken a turn for the better.   Dubai’s world-class infrastructure gave the emirate’s ...

COVER STORY: EMERGING MARKETS FOCUS 2010   By Gordon Platt   After an impressive 2010, the coming year looks likely to bring more good news for most emerging markets.   Emerging markets are giving capital controls a good name. Long ...

COVER STORY: LIVING ON THE EDGE   By Laurence Neville   Southern Europe's sovereign debt crisis may appear to have been resolved, but severe trials still lie ahead—particularly for Greece.   The travails of Southern Europe—in particular Spain, Portugal and ...

ANALYSIS: GLOBAL GROWTH   By Laurence Neville   As companies thrive while countries struggle, a split seems to be emerging between macroeconomic and corporate performance.   Observers of the global economy could be forgiven for being a little confused of ...

TOOLBOX: CORPORATE CREDIT CARDS   By Denise Bedell   Businesses discover the benefits of linking corporate card programs with other parts of the physical and financial supply chain.   As automated expense management solutions become ever more integrated with other ...

WINNERS: ASIA   Best Commodity Derivatives Provider Macquarie Australia's Macquarie Group finances producers of a wide variety of commodities and has a reputation for producing the most astute research on commodities, particularly on metals and mining in Asia. Two years ...

WINNERS: EUROPE   Best Commodity Derivatives Provider Morgan Stanley Despite attempts by competitors to nibble at its market share when commodities prices were soaring in 2009, Morgan Stanley has maintained its dominant position in commodities derivatives in Europe thanks to ...

WINNERS: EXCHANGES   Achievement Award ICE Long before derivatives reform was on the regulatory agenda, the Intercontinental Exchange in Atlanta was well on the way to achieving what regulators hope to accomplish with new rules—an unprecedented level of transparency in ...

WINNERS: LATIN AMERICA   Best Derivatives Provider Société Générale Few other banks can claim as vast and deep a reach across the fragmented continent of Latin America—and across all classes of financial derivatives—as Société Générale. This is partly a function ...

WINNERS: MIDDLE EAST   Best Derivatives Provider HSBC HSBC  has become the preferred derivatives dealer in the Middle East, which  endured an even more pronounced credit crunch than other regions. The  bank took clients away from Standard Chartered, the only ...

WINNERS: NORTH AMERICA   Best Commodity Derivatives Provider Goldman Sachs In the wake of the credit crunch in 2007 and the stock market crash of 2008, hundreds of billions of dollars poured out of stocks and bonds and into commodities, ...

ANNUAL SURVEY: A NEW STATUS QUO   By Michael Shari   The landscape of leading derivatives providers is being reshaped largely by a preference for low commissions and a newfound fear of having American banks as counterparties.   It would ...

ANNUAL SURVEY: GOING MOBILE   By Adam Rombel   In the second of a two-part series, Global Finance identifies the best corporate/institutional and consumer Internet banks globally and in six regions, plus an overall winner. We also name global winners ...

EMERGING MARKETS INVESTOR: DR NEWS   By Gordon Platt   BNY Mellon is helping to bring American depositary receipts (ADRs) to Singapore and exchange-trade funds (ETFs) based on its DR indexes to Shanghai. This will provide access for local investors ...

ROUNDUP   By Antonio Guerrero   Good to go: Tullow resolves dispute over Uganda's oil fields Uganda moved closer to becoming an oil producer after UK-based Tullow Oil reached an agreement with the government over a tax dispute. Tullow, which ...

ROUNDUP   By Antonio Guerrero   Doubling up: Vale plans to ramp up spending next year Mounting concerns over Banco PanAmericano's liquidity sent its shares into freefall and prompted a government bailout. The bank—Brazil's 20th largest by assets—received a $1.5 ...

ROUNDUP   By Thomas Clouse   China's trade surplus rose to $27.15 billion in October, its second highest reading of the year, the customs office reported last month. The surplus represents a 60% month-on-month increase and comes despite an almost ...

ROUNDUP   By Aaron Chaze   The other black gold: Coal India sparks investor frenzy Coal India, the world's largest coal mining company and one of the Indian government's mega disinvestments, became the largest IPO ever in India and one ...

ROUNDUP   By Kim Iskyan   Moscow's mayor: Sobyanin Sergei Sobyanin, the former chief of staff of prime minister Vladimir Putin, was named mayor of Moscow late in October. He succeeds Yuri Luzhkov, who was ousted in September after an ...

EMERGING MARKETS INVESTOR: NEWS   By Gordon Platt   Russell Investments, based in Washington state, introduced a new index, the Russell Frontier Index, that initially includes 683 stocks from 41 countries, none of which are included in the firm's emerging-markets ...

COMPANY TO WATCH: FORD OTOSAN/TURKEY   By Gordon Platt   Ford Otosan, a joint venture between Ford Motor of the US and Koç Group, a leading industrial conglomerate based in Turkey, exports its products to more than 60 countries. Soon ...

MILESTONES: AZERBAIJAN   By Justin Keay   Baku: Enjoying the fruits of Azerbaijan's mineral wealth Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections in early November ended in controversy, with critics claiming the opposition parties were prevented from being able to properly challenge Yeni Azerbaijan, ...

MILESTONES: BURMA   By Thomas Clouse   Suu kyi: Free at last Burma held its first election in two decades in early November. The winners of the election will take control of the government from the military, which has ruled ...

MILESTONES: CANADA   By Denise Bedell   Harper: Potash decision prompts concerns When Canada's government blocked Australian mining firm BHP Billiton's $39 billion bid for fertilizer giant Potash of Saskatchewan, it did more than put a dent in the Canadian ...

MILESTONES: GLOBAL   By Gordon Platt   Comic relief: G20 leaders laugh despite deficit deadlock At last month's Seoul summit of the G20—or the G19+1, as one senior Asian central bank official recently dubbed it—the US was isolated from the ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: CORPORATE DEBT   By Gordon Platt   The bond market rally was given a new lease on life last month when the Federal Reserve announced it would buy $600 billion of US treasuries—and maybe more, if necessary—by ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: FOREIGN EXCHANGE   By Gordon Platt   Although the Federal Reserve's main focus is not the dollar, which is the purview of the US Treasury Department, it had to know that its $600 billion asset- purchase plan ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: GLOBAL EQUITY/ DRS   By Gordon Platt   Companies based in China and India dominated global initial public offerings in the first three quarters of 2010, and now the US is getting ready to join the new-equity ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: MERGERS & ACQUISITION   By Gordon Platt   Growing risk appetite triggered a sudden burst of cross-border mergers and acquisitions in October, as investors prepared for a second round of quantitative easing, or QE2, from the Federal ...

  NEWSMAKERS: ARGENTINA   By Antonio Guerrero   Kirchner: Hoping to mend fences with the unions A controversial profit-sharing bill submitted to Congress by Argentina's ruling coalition is becoming a proxy fight between the nation's labor and business sectors ahead ...

NEWSMAKERS: GLOBAL   By Anita Hawser   Nivison: Trade is different When the new Basel III capital adequacy proposals were announced back in the summer, some members of the banking community breathed a sigh of relief as the timeline for ...

NEWSMAKERS: GLOBAL   By Dan Keeler   Zoellick: Promoting fair value of  ecosystems In an attempt to help countries calculate the true value of their natural assets, the World Bank has launched a project that will create an ecosystem valuation ...

NEWSMAKERS: RUSSIA   By Kim Iskyan   Khodorkovsky: Sentence likely to be extended After months of wrangling, the verdict on the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Russia's Yukos Oil Company, is due in mid-December. The ex-tycoon ...