Global news and insight for corporate financial professionals
WITH A COOL HAND By Laurence Neville China is taking advantage of the European crisis to make strategic investments in the Continent and encourage companies to pick up cheap assets. But the Asian nation is taking a slow ...
LAND OF OPPORTUNITY By Antonio Guerrero A number of African markets may be on the verge of massive growth—fueled by a rising consumer class. Given the long-standing reputation for political and economic volatility in some African markets, ...
THE NEW SILK ROAD By Anita Hawser Supply chain finance is becoming a critical tool in funding fast-growing Southern corridor trade. The ancient Silk Road, one of the world’s oldest trade routes, increased the importance of Southern ...
A REGION IN TRANSITION By Vanessa Drucker Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, former Iron Curtain countries have embarked on a long road toward liberal market economies. Since the 1990s—during their accession to the European Union ...
A DIM SUM BANQUET By Arthur Clennam The offshore renminbi market has been growing rapidly, but its character is changing. Were it a new model car, the market for offshore renminbi trading might be dubbed the “Inexorable”—but ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt AFRICA Not only is Africa rich in natural resources, but it also offers the promise of fast economic growth in a number of countries, and a population lacking basic banking services. ...
SEEKING STABILITY By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt Global Finance presents its 19th annual awards for the best banks in the developed and emerging markets. The global financial system is out of the recovery room ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt ASIA Asia has provided one of the few bright spots in the global economy in recent years. The region rebounded quickly from the global financial crisis and has thus far avoided ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt EUROPE Europe’s banks are being pulled in two directions. Governments want them to lend more, especially to small- and medium-size enterprises, while European and national regulators require them to strengthen their ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt LATIN AMERICA With its developing middle class, the region’s growing consumer sector helped banks to continue posting healthy returns last year. Banking sector assets and profits were up throughout the region, ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt MIDDLE EAST The oil-exporting countries of the Middle East are enjoying strong economic growth, whereas countries that experienced political uprisings during the Arab Spring of 2011 are struggling to get back ...
By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt NORTH AMERICA North America’s banks are well along the road to recovery from the financial crisis, amid signs of improvement in the US and Canadian economies. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ...
EMERGING MARKETS INVESTOR: DR NEWS By Gordon Platt Five new, unsponsored American depositary receipt (ADR) programs for Indonesian companies were launched in March by BNY Mellon, targeting the strong corporate sector in the Asian economy. Indonesia’s economy grew ...
EMERGING MARKETS INVESTOR: NEWS By Gordon Platt Strong investor flows into emerging markets funds at the beginning of 2012 have since moderated but not reversed. Analysts say the slower pace of inflows is more sustainable and is not a cause ...
PLATINUM MINING PROJECT PROMISES BIG REWARDS By Antonio Guerrero South Africa’s state-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has entered into a $420 million public-private partnership to develop a mine that could become one of the world’s largest platinum producers over ...
STIMULUS PACKAGE TARGETS BUSINESS LOANS By Antonio Guerrero In a bid to support economic growth, the Brazilian government in April rolled out new tax cuts worth as much as $5 billion and put through a stimulus package including BRL45 ...
REGULATORS BOOST FOREIGN PORTFOLIO INVESTMENT LIMITS By Thomas Clouse Chinese regulators will allow more foreign participation in domestic capital markets, increasing the quota for its qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) program from $30 billion to $80 billion. According ...
FOREIGN INVESTORS MAY EXIT IF FAVORABLE TAX TREATMENT DISAPPEARS By Aaron Chaze Foreign investors routing investments to India through Mauritius could potentially be taxed on their short-term gains, under a tax law amendment that was proposed in the recently ...
IRAQ HOSTS ITS FIRST ARAB LEAGUE SUMMIT SINCE 1990 By Gordon Platt It was a costly affair. The first Arab League annual summit to be held in Iraq since before Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, it cost the ...
NEW BANK CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS COULD HEAT UP M&A By Kim Iskyan Acting finance minister Anton Siluanov threw his support behind a proposal to increase minimum capital requirements for banks after 2015 by more than five times—to around $34 million. ...
TURKEY’S LEADING GLASSMAKER EXPANDS ABROAD By Gordon Platt Glassmaker Şişecam has a near monopoly on the glass market in Turkey, where it operates a chain of retail outlets for its Paşabahçe brand of glassware, and where its flat-glass output ...
ASIA’S EL DORADO By Michael Shari Global Finance sat down with Alisher Ali, founder of the largest investment bank and asset management firm in Mongolia, to get his take on the world’s fastest-growing economy. Educated at Columbia ...
GREAT EXPECTATIONS By Justin Keay The government has lofty aspirations for Turkish growth, but reform and demographic development are necessary for the nation’s economy to reach its potential. The coming year could be a good one for ...
MILESTONES: GLOBAL By Valentina Pasquali Over the past few years markets have experienced declining trust in fiat money, a slow departure from the US dollar as a reserve currency and growing interest in bullion, particularly as a hedge against ...
MILESTONES: EUROPE By Anita Hawser It has been almost three years in the making and encapsulates European regulators’ response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the implosion of the collateralized debt obligation market following the subprime crisis in ...
MILESTONES: CHINA By Valentina Pasquali Energy demand in emerging countries has skyrocketed in recent years due to rapid economic growth. In China, oil production has followed suit, although not at the same pace. The country remains a net importer. ...
MILESTONES: SPAIN By Vanessa Drucker The merger agreement between CaixaBank and Banca Civica smacks of a shotgun wedding—for Civica, anyhow. Spanish banks forced to tie the knot by capital requirements CaixaBank, Spain’s largest bank by retail branches, is ...
MILESTONES: CAMBODIA By Thomas Clouse Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) became the country’s first domestically listed company in April after launching a $20.5 million IPO. Water Supply Authority is first to list on Cambodia Exchange The company ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: CORPORATE DEBT By Gordon Platt Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said recently that improvements in the US labor market might not be sustained because of weak economic growth and signaled that the Fed was likely to ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: GLOBAL EQUITY / DRS By Gordon Platt The global equity capital markets got off to a relatively slow start in 2012, with a decline of 26% in activity in the first quarter from the same period ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: FOREIGN EXCHANGE By Gordon Platt The dollar rose sharply last month after the Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting in March signaled that further monetary easing is unlikely unless the US economy slows significantly or the inflation rate ...
CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS By Gordon Platt Switzerland’s Glencore International, the world’s largest commodities trader, agreed to acquire Canada’s biggest grain trader, Viterra, for C$16 a share ($16.05)—which values the company at $6 billion—in a deal that ...
NEWSMAKERS: NORWAY By Luca Ventura A former bank teller, Norway’s finance minister Sigbjørn Johnsen is not too concerned about upsetting some of his erstwhile bank employers. Johnsen takes on Norway’s banks again Photo Credit : REUTERS/SCANPIX “It ...
NEWSMAKERS: MYANMAR By Kim Iskyan By winning a seat in the country’s parliament in early-April by-elections, Myanmar dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi ushered in a new era in the history of the country formerly known as Burma. ...
NEWSMAKERS: CANADA By Luca Ventura On March 29, telecoms company Research In Motion posted its first loss in seven years. Tough road ahead for RIM chief Thorsten Heins Photo Credit : REUTERS/EDUARDO MUNOZ It was not what shareholders had ...
NEWSMAKERS: HONG KONG By Thomas Clouse Newly elected Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying will face challenges on multiple fronts when he starts his new job on July 1. All smiles: A win for Leung but voters are ...
