January 2008

  Asia’s most dynamic economies are amassing huge cash fortunes that they can then wield to increase their power around the world. Will 2008 be the year when we t ruly see the balance of global power shift to the ...

ANNUAL SURVEY/ BEST FX BANKS         The 54 central banks and monetary authorities that took a measure of the foreign exchange market last year under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements discovered an unprecedented rise ...

NEWS       China Nepstar Chain Drugstore, already the largest drugstore in China based on the number of directly operated outlets, plans to vastly increase its size with the proceeds of its initial public offering of American depositary receipts ...

DR NEWS       New York-based MSCI Barra, which is majority-owned by Morgan Stanley, plans to introduce a family of benchmark indexes next month covering 19 “frontier market” countries. Institutional investors want to look beyond existing developed and emerging ...

BRAZIL       The good times roll: Brazil's economy provides plenty of reasons to celebrate. Brazil-focused hedge funds continued to outperform other emerging market funds, producing an average 5.11% return in October, for a hefty 29.47% year-to-date (YTD) gain. ...

COMPANY TO WATCH: COPA HOLDINGS/PANAMA       Panama, a natural transportation hub with its famous canal, has become an air-transport center for the Americas, thanks to its national flag carrier, Copa Airlines. The fast-growing airline with a young fleet ...

RUSSIA       Putin: Backing his friend Dmitry Medvedev's election bid. As widely anticipated, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won the country’s parliamentary elections on December 2, with 63% of the vote. In the weeks running up ...

    INDIA       Hold-up: Aging roads are hindering Indias growth. Twenty leading global and Indian infrastructure construction companies are bidding for the contract to build a $10 billion eight-lane expressway in the northern Indian state of Uttar ...

CHINA       Hong Kong: Focus of tension with the US. China stoked military tension with the United States by denying entry to a number of US naval vessels looking to dock in Hong Kong. In the most publicized ...

EXPANDING HORIZONS ICELAND Iceland is going all out to expand its economy—and the global reach of its banks and corporations.     With a wealthy consumer base that has the sixth-highest per capita GDP in the OECD, 0.8% unemployment, negligible ...

CORPORATE FINANCING FOCUS     The shifting sands in the foreign exchange market in 2007 undermined the dollar to the extent that China openly weighed what its state media refer to as the “nuclear option” of dropping its vast holdings ...

CORPORATE DEBT       With banks still reluctant to lend, corporations that have delayed borrowing during the recent turmoil in the credit markets may have little choice but to issue debt in the coming months, putting further pressure on ...

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS More mergers in the mining industry are likely in 2008, analysts say, including potentially some of the biggest M&A; deals ever. Australia-based mining company BHP Billiton in November announced plans to launch an unsolicited tender offer to ...

GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS       When state-owned China Railway, the world’s third-biggest construction company, offered $3 billion worth of shares for sale in its initial public offering in Shanghai last month, it attracted more than $450 billion in subscriptions. Clearly, ...

UNITED STATES       Gardner: More companies are signing up to going green. Global investors, institutions and corporates are increasingly looking to improve their sustainability profile, according to a report by the Worldwatch Institute released in January. The report, ...

  CHINA       Filling up: China’s consumers may face shortages soon. While the Chinese horoscope attributes such auspicious qualities as intelligence, charisma and compassion to those born in the Year of the Rat, which begins on February 7, ...

BRANCHING OUT Advances in technology are helping treasury and cash management specialists provide their organizations and clients with greater depth and breadth of services.     Gary Greenwald heads global capabilities and information products for global transaction services cash management ...