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Cover Story

Cover Story : A Tangled Debate

Public Private Partnerships are sweeping the globe, but in the country where they have been most used PPPs remain deeply controversial. In late September last year, US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan flew to London for an unusual task. He ...

Features

Features : Calling In the New World to Help the Old

A Citigroup veteran is remaking an industry stalwart. The setting: an elegant conference room in the early-20th century neo-Baroque headquarters of the Willis Group. Across a snowy square from the gleaming white stone offices—formerly the center of the Port of ...

Features : Capping the Legal Nightmare

One of the biggest challenges facing corporate America is not about to go away, but there are signs that it might be capped. Finally, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for companies struggling with the ballooning costs of ...

Features : Europe's Bourses Dance in Slow Motion

Consolidation continues to raise its head, but few can predict how the exchange landscape will look at the end of this year. Three years ago it looked as if Europe’s stock exchanges would consolidate in the blink of an eye. ...

Features : Next Step for Internet Banking

Corporate clients clamor for online services that go beyond account information and transactions and actually change business processes to make them more efficient. Okay, so you’ve built it, but have they come? That question sums up where banks stand when ...

Features : Sweat Those Assets

The backroom world of cash management has suddenly been thrust into the limelight. By Graham Field Cash is king.The swath of false accounting scandals in the United States last year reinforced the strength of that dictum. As equity analysts panicked ...

Features : The Other US Deficit

It’s not uncommon for corporate financial officers to cut billion-dollar checks these days as they shore up the sagging balances of their company pension funds. Three years of plummeting equity returns and some of the lowest interest rates in four ...

Features : World’s Best Trade Finance Banks 2003

The financial services industry enhances its role as trusted intermediary by taking the risk out of international transactions As the locomotive of the global economy, the United States faces considerable uncertainty about potential conflict in Iraq and the threat that ...

Emerging Markets

Newsmakers : Biggs Leaving Morgan Stanley To Manage Hedge Fund

UNITED STATES Some Wall Street executives retire to play golf and spend more time with their families. Barton Biggs, 70, Morgan Stanley’s chief global strategist, is “retiring” later this year after 30 years with the investment bank to lead a ...

World’s Best Trade Finance Banks 2003

Features : World’s Best Trade Finance Banks 2003

The financial services industry enhances its role as trusted intermediary by taking the risk out of international transactions As the locomotive of the global economy, the United States faces considerable uncertainty about potential conflict in Iraq and the threat that ...

Milestones

Milestones : Bet Your Hedges

EUROPE To hedge or not to hedge has always been a vexing question for corporate treasurers, but recently it’s got more difficult still. The imminent arrival of accounting standard IAS 309 in Europe, together with the recently introduced FA 133 ...

Milestones : Italy Receives S&p Warning

ITALY It’s a sharp shot across the bows, and it’s unlikely to be the last we hear of it this year. In January ratings agency Standard & Poor’s lowered its outlook on the AA sovereign ratings of Italy to negative, ...

Milestones : Lack Of Air Cover

EUROPE Europe’s airline companies have fallen off the radar screens of analysts at US investment bank Lehman Brothers. The bank’s London-based research department will no longer follow the aviation sector, in a move that a spokesperson said would “better align ...

Milestones : Bosnia Seeks Credit Rating

BOSNIA The European Union Police Mission that moved into Bosnia and Herzegovina this January was joined by other new visitors to the war-battered former Yugoslav state: analysts prepared to measure the creditworthiness of what is, on paper, the poorest country ...

Corporate Finance

Corporate Finance : ADR Trading Volume Up, Despite Weak Markets

THE AMERICAS Trading of American depositary receipts rose 6.8% in volume terms in 2002 to 28 billion shares, according to New Yorkbased Citibank Depositary Receipt Services. Overall trading volume continued to rise, particularly for Asian issuers, indicating investors’ ongoing interest ...

Corporate Finance : Dollar Expected To Fall, But Not To Collapse

THE AMERICAS The US dollar fell 9.2% on a trade-weighted basis in 2002, and analysts predict further losses for the greenback this year, particularly against the euro. Fears of a plunge in the dollar are overdone,however, despite the potential for ...

Corporate Finance : Europe Passes US In Value of Deals

EUROPE For the first time in 11 years, the value of European corporate takeovers in 2002 was greater than the value of US takeovers. Crédit Agricole’s $16.8 billion agreement to acquire Crédit Lyonnais pushed Europe over the top in December, ...

Corporate Finance : US Corporate Volume Slumped 28% in 2002

THE AMERICAS US corporate bond issuance in 2002 fell 28% to $465 billion, according to analysts at Dealogic in New York. The largest investmentgrade issue was General Electric Capital’s $6.9 billion, two-part offering on March 13 2002, which comprised $2 ...

Newsmakers

Newsmakers : Biggs Leaving Morgan Stanley To Manage Hedge Fund

UNITED STATES Some Wall Street executives retire to play golf and spend more time with their families. Barton Biggs, 70, Morgan Stanley’s chief global strategist, is “retiring” later this year after 30 years with the investment bank to lead a ...