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Cover Story

Cover Story : World’s Best Banks

THE WORLD’S BEST GLOBAL BANKS A growing global economy made it some-what easier to be a banker in the past 12 months, as credit risks generally de-clined and de-mand for bank-ing services was brisk. The skills of the world’s bankers ...

Cover Story : World’s Best Banks/asia Pacific

ASIA PACIFIC ARMENIA HSBC BANK ARMENIA Armenia’s banking sector has largely consolidated, but it is still relatively trouble plagued. Even after so many problem banks have closed, HSBC’s ability to provide banking services and products has helped it care out ...

Cover Story : Award Winners

The World’s Best Banks The World's Best Banks Global Corporate Citigroup Consumer HSBC Private UBS Asset Management UBS Custody The Bank of New York Investment Citigroup North America US Citigroup Canada Scotiabank Latin America Argentina Banco Macro-Bansud Barbados FirstCaribbean International ...

Features

Features : Banks Explore Ways To Deploy Surplus Capital

How to deal with the surplus capital on their balance sheets has become a key challenge for many financial institutions. For some companies, not having enough capital is a constant source of headaches. However, the situation is quite different for ...

Features : Business and Government Begin to Work Together

Indonesia’s government appears to be taking its role in driving economic growth seriously. Its progressive attitude is helping businesses, both domestic and foreign-owned, to grow and become more competitive. Peter Fanning doesn’t have much time for relaxation these days. The ...

Features : Central Bank Report Cards

This year has been an interesting time to be a central banker. With the US dollar taking a tumble against almost all other currencies, the world’s central bankers have had to take a long hard look at their exposure to ...

Features : Hopes Rise For Future On A Divided Island

Cyprus has experienced a great deal of change recently but still faces the future with a good deal of optimism It has been an eventful year for the beautiful but divided eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. On May 1 Cyprus ...

Features : The World's Biggest Banks

Global Finance ranks the world's 50 biggest banks, as measured by total assets. This year has been an interesting time to be a central banker. With the US dollar taking a tumble against almost all other currencies, the world’s central ...

Features : World's Best Treasury & Cash Management Providers

WORLD’S BESTB ANKS The big international banks make it look easy, sweeping up dollars and euros and various other currencies from remote corners of the world and investing the resulting cash pile in the highest-yielding instruments with acceptable risks, in ...

Features : World's Safest Banks

The World’s Safest Banks 2004 Global Finance selects the World’s Safest Banks, the 50 institutions with the highest ratings from the leading international credit ratings agencies. It is perhaps a sign of things to come that a giant French bank ...

Emerging Markets

Cover Story : World’s Best Banks

THE WORLD’S BEST GLOBAL BANKS A growing global economy made it some-what easier to be a banker in the past 12 months, as credit risks generally de-clined and de-mand for bank-ing services was brisk. The skills of the world’s bankers ...

Emerging Markets : At Last! An Upgrade

Brazil After months of market talk indicating that a marked improvement in Brazilian fundamentals would lead to an upgrade in its sovereign ratings, Moody’s took the first step and upped the country’s long-term foreign currency debt to B1 from B2 ...

Emerging Markets : Oil And Banking Giants Feel Urge To Merge

India If the newly installed minister of petroleum has his way, then Indian industry will see the largest merger ever. The Indian oil industry's functions, from exploration and production and refining through to marketing, are controlled or dominated by government-owned ...

Emerging Markets : Output Bounce Raises Threat Of Overheating

China Chinese industrial output rebounded in August after months of decline. Analysts said strong export growth could explain some of the 15.9% year-on-year rise. But the data suggests state measures to cool off China’s economy are becoming less effective, fueling ...

Emerging Markets : Putin's Image Takes A Beating

Russia The so-called Yukos affair continued to dominate headlines. The naming of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein to value the oil company's major production unit, prior to an anticipated sale to raise proceeds to pay off Yukos's still-mounting tax bill, briefly reassured ...

Central Banker Report Cards

Features : Central Bank Report Cards

This year has been an interesting time to be a central banker. With the US dollar taking a tumble against almost all other currencies, the world’s central bankers have had to take a long hard look at their exposure to ...

Milestones

Milestones : Foreign Central Banks Balk At Treasury Auction

United States Some who saw the announcement were so shocked by the number that they thought it was a misprint when the US treasury reported the results of indirect bidding at a $9 billion auction of reopened 10-year government bonds ...

Milestones : The United States Of South America? Latin America

Latin America Two hundred years after Latin American liberator Simon Bolivar proposed creating a League of South American Republics, some Latins are calling for the establishment of a political and economic union to rival the EU. Some have even begun ...

Milestones : Low Productivity Costs The British Economy Billions

United Kingdom Perceptions of the UK’s international competitiveness have suffered a blow with studies indicating that low productivity is costing the economy £87 billion annually. According to a study conducted by Proudfoot Consulting, the banking and finance industry is among ...

Corporate Finance

Corporate Finance : Corporate Bonds The Americas

Rainbow National Offering Clears Way for Spin-Off Rainbow National Services, the programming subsidiary of Bethpage, New York-based Cablevision Systems, sold $800 million of notes in a two-part offering in the private-placement market. Cablevision, which began as a cable television operator ...

Corporate Finance : Global Depositary Receipts Europe

Royal Bank of Scotland Issues Preference Shares Royal Bank of Scotland, the second-largest bank in the UK, issued $925 million of preference shares in the form of American Depositary Receipts. A portion of the proceeds may be used to help ...

Corporate Finance : Mergers & Acquisitions

ASIA Bidding War Erupts For Japanese Bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial made a $29 billion hostile bid for UFJ Holdings, which already had plans to merge with Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial. Either suitor’s pairing with UFJ would create the world’s largest bank ...

Newsmakers

Newsmakers : Hedge funds under increasing scrutiny

United States An SEC proposal to register hedge fund advisers has received a mixed response, with some welcoming it as long overdue and others saying it could impose a regulatory burden that would mean the SEC was less able to ...

Newsmakers : An Adman's Dream Of World Domination Finally Comes True

United Kingdom Diminutive Sir Martin Sorrell, chairman and chief executive of London-based WPP, has thrown his weight around and emerged at the top of the advertising and media-services world. Sir Martin realized his lifelong dream of dominating the global advertising ...

Newsmakers : Firm Fails to Keep it in the Family

United States One wonders what Frenchman Michel David-Weill is thinking these days as Lazard, the closely held investment bank that his immigrant family founded in 1848 as a New Orleans dry goods store, may soon be on the auction block. ...

Newsmakers : Panama’s Former Canal Chief Jumps in the Deep End

Panama He doesn’t carry the star appeal of Panamanian tourism minister and international salsa king Ruben Blades. But neither does he have the ominous family name of Panama’s newly elected centrist president Martin Torrijos, son of the notorious long-time dictator ...

Additional Stories

Corporate Finance :Foreign Exchange The Americas

Strong-Dollar Policy May Survive Election The official currency policy of the US administration in the years ahead will continue to be that a strong dollar is in the best interests of the country, no matter who wins next month’s presidential ...

Corporate Finance :Mergers & Acquisitions

ASIA Bidding War Erupts For Japanese Bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial made a $29 billion hostile bid for UFJ Holdings, which already had plans to merge with Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial. Either suitor’s pairing with UFJ would create the world’s largest bank ...