March 2014

By Laurence Neville Thirty-four developing countries—including all of the so-called Fragile Five nations—will have elections this year. Their results will be felt not only by other emerging economies but by global markets. At the end of January, panic gripped emerging ...

GOLD STANDARD By Rebecca Brace and Anita Hawser Global Finance presents the winners of its annual Best Treasury & Cash Management Providers awards. Global multinational corporates may have come out of the 2008 global financial crisis better off than the ...

LOCATION: LONDON, UK Global Finance held its Best Trade Finance Banks 2014 ceremony during the BAFT global annual meeting in London in January. Corporate and financial leaders from around the world were present to accept their awards and honor other ...

EMERGING MARKETS ROUNDUP By Antonio Guerrero Brazil posted a net foreign exchange outflow of $12.3 billion for 2013, marking the first negative balance since the 2008 global financial crisis—putting paid to Brazilian Finance minister Guido Mantega’s claims that developed markets ...

EMERGING MARKETS ROUNDUP By Aaron Chaze For the first time ever, the Indian central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, is looking at setting a long-term inflation target as part of a new monetary policy mechanism, after interest rates were ...

THE DISCERNING EYE By Tiziana Barghini Not all emerging markets are created equal, as the current EM crisis has once again demonstrated. Global Finance sat down with Markus Schomer, chief economist at PineBridge Investments, to discuss the 2014 economic outlook ...

MILESTONES By Tiziana Barghini Argentina has it tough. With GDP growth expected to fall to approximately 1.5% this year (compared with growth of more than 8% in 2011), foreign reserves at a seven-year-record low and an unofficial inflation rate well ...

MILESTONES By Justin Keay First Jordan was hit by the global economic crisis, which slowed annual growth rates from around 8% to 3% and reduced foreign direct investment to a trickle. Now Syria’s bloody civil war is threatening to overwhelm ...

MILESTONES By Valentina Pasquali The US Federal Reserve’s gradual withdrawal from the unconventional monetary policies of the past few years is causing panic across emerging markets, forcing central banks to raise interest rates in an effort to thwart ongoing capital ...

MILESTONES By Ronald Fink Fiat-Chrysler’s move from Italy to London, and the plans of other multinationals to relocate to the United Kingdom, cements the UK’s newfound international tax status. The car manufacturer’s recent decision to shift its tax domicile from ...

MILESTONES By Gilly Wright By awarding HSBC and Linklaters as external advisers, the UK government is a little closer to its widely anticipated issue of a sovereign sukuk, or Islamic bond. Last October in London during the World Islamic Economic ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS By Gordon Platt Neither the consequent volatility in emerging markets nor weak US employment data will deter the Federal Reserve from continuing to gradually reduce its purchases of bonds, analysts say. “Moderate job growth remains in place, ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS By Gordon Platt China and Russia have returned to the global equity capital markets, following a lengthy absence. China led in the number of capital raisings using depositary receipts last year, with 14 of the 51 transactions ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS By Gordon Platt The Japanese yen and the dollar rode an updraft in recent weeks caused by a flight to safety amid the emerging markets crisis. Meanwhile, the euro also was strengthened by the European Central Bank, ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS By Gordon Platt Comcast agreed in February to acquire Time Warner Cable in an all-stock deal worth more than $45 billion that would combine the two largest cable operators in the US. The proposed offer apparently unplugged ...

NEWSMAKERS By Forrest Jones Alberto Arenas returns to government as Finance minister with some big plans for a country looking to enact education, labor and other reforms. A budget director during Chilean president Michelle Bachelet’s first term in office from ...

NEWSMAKERS By Anita Hawser One woman who worked hard to ensure that the wheels of global trade kept turning, even in the midst of the global financial crisis, was Bonnie Galat, global head of business development for trade and supply ...

NEWSMAKERS By Efraim Chalamish Satya Nadella, a Microsoft insider who came up through the ranks to become Microsoft’s executive vice president, Cloud and enterprise, has replaced Steve Ballmer as CEO. Choosing Nadella is a safe bet: He has been with ...

Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe is one of Africa’s last old-school dictators. But he’s proving that he may be able to change—for the better. In the decade ending in 2008, Zimbabwe’s economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.1%. Then, in 2009, the country adopted the US dollar. Since then, growth has averaged nearly 8% per year...

“The emerging economies’ average [on the PwC Escape Index, which measures how countries can “escape” from their current economic position and move into a higher economic gear] has continued to rise since 2007, while the advanced economies’ average has fallen ...