October 2007

THE WORLD BANK The World Bank’s struggle to redefine its role in a globalized economy has raised a fundamental question: Do we really need a World Bank?     No sooner had the dust settled after the controversial departure of ...

FOCUS / TERRORISM FUNDING     Legislation aimed at cracking down on funding for terrorists is having some damaging side effects for banks and businesses. Kochan: It may be a fallacy that banks can anticipate terrorist financing. Following the attacks ...

ANALYSIS / INFRASTRUCTURE FUNDING Many Asian countries desperately need to upgrade their infrastructure while cash-rich private equity funds are scouring the region for long-term investments. Is this a match made in heaven?   Nag: We can only meet a small ...

REGIONAL REPORT / NORDIC BANKING As Nordic banks look further outside their home markets for growth, the rewards—and also the risks—are increasing. Over the past few years, banks in the Nordic region have benefited from highly favorable economic conditions across ...

ANNUAL SURVEY / CENTRAL BANKER REPORT CARDS Individually, many of the world’s leading central bankers seemed to be in disarray after the subprime debacle began to unfold in mid-2007. As a group, though, they acted with remarkably unity. The central ...

  ANNUAL SURVEY/ WORLD’S BIGGEST BANKS It is just two years since we last listed the world’s biggest banks, and in that time the assets of the top 10 have jumped from what was then an eye-popping $12 trillion to ...

  ANNUAL SURVEY/ WORLD’S SAFEST BANKS   Global Finance selects the world’s safest banks, the 50 institutions with the highest ratings from the leading international credit ratings agencies. Images of customers queuing to withdraw their savings from Britain’s Northern Rock ...

ANNUAL SURVEY / WORLD’S BEST BANKS At a time when the world economic outlook is more uncertain than it has been in years, the banking industry finds itself at the vortex of a financial market storm that originated in subprime ...

NEWS Foreign institutional buyers who purchased emerging market equities to realize value from long-term investments are not exiting their positions, despite increased volatility in global markets, according to a leading broker in the markets. There has been no increase in ...

INDIA     Organized retail is growing in India. India’s economic growth continues apace. For the April-June 2007 quarter, which is the first for the Indian fiscal year, GDP growth was 9.3%—up marginally from the previous quarter’s growth, which came ...

CHINA     On the rise: China's rule changes have boosted Hong Kong's markets. China has further relaxed constraints on the investment industry, saying it will, for the first time, allow private citizens to invest individually in the Hong Kong ...

RUSSIA     Zubkov: Putin's surprise favorite to take over as prime minister. In a long-overdue cabinet shuffle, Russian prime minister Mikhail Fradkov submitted his resignation on September 12. Hours later president Vladimir Putin nominated the relatively unknown head of ...

BRAZIL Some 50% of respondents to a Merrill Lynch emerging market investor survey in August said they were bullish on Brazil. Reaching a similar conclusion, rival Morgan Stanley predicts Brazilian markets will see further upside, despite recent US market turbulence, ...

COMPANY TO WATCH: LARSEN & TOUBRO/INDIA Engineering and construction conglomerate Larsen & Toubro, one of India’s largest listed companies, has evolved into a multinational corporation with offices in 30 countries, a growing order book in the Middle East, and manufacturing ...

DR NEWS Russia’s national power utility OAO Unified Energy System has completed the spin-off of two power-generation units, OGK-5 and TGK-5, completing the first part of the government’s plan to break up the company. UES, the former power monopoly, also ...

COUNTRY REPORT / PHILIPPINES     Schleimer: The Clean Air Act could be used to regulate greenhouse gases With the May general election safely behind it, the Philippine government hopes to use the next three years of relative political quietude ...

COUNTRY REPORT / BRAZIL     Buffeted by the shockwaves from the US subprime mortgage crisis, Brazil has to steer a steady course if it is to keep its economic development on track.     Buffeted by the shockwaves from ...

LATIN AMERICA     Lipsky: Sounds a warning. When the meltdown in US subprime mortgages triggered forecasts of a possible US recession, unleashing global credit and money market volatility, Latin America proved to be relatively insulated from the debacle. Though ...

CHINA       Feeling the squeeze: Chinas shoppers face swiftly growing prices. China’s central bank increased reserve requirements for the seventh time this year in September in a losing battle to control the growth in bank credit. Outstanding loans ...

COLOMBIA     Ecopetrol's Cartagena oil refinery. The Colombian energy sector entered a new investor-friendly era with the late-August IPO of Ecopetrol, the state-owned oil company. Ecopetrol is Colombia’s largest corporation, with income of around $18 billion in 2006. The ...

EUROPE       Desmares: Corporates cool on SEPA. Businesses and public sector organizations operating in Europe have until 2010 to abandon existing national payment instruments and adopt new pan-European credit transfer and direct debits. At least that is the ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS / FOREIGN EXCHANGE     As risk appetite returns to the global markets, the dollar could lose what little support it has gained from its role as a safe-haven currency during the recent period of turbulence, analysts ...

GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS China is likely to have the year’s biggest initial public offering for the second year in a row, although there remains a chance that Russia will beat it out. As Global Finance went to press, China Construction Bank ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS / CORPORATE DEBT The market for short-term corporate IOUs, or commercial paper, has continued to shrink in recent weeks amid the spreading credit crunch, putting more pressure on traditional bank credit lines. Commercial paper outstanding in the ...

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS The global credit crunch appears to be having a major impact on the size and financing of takeovers, where cash deals for much smaller targets are increasingly the rule. The biggest announced M&A; transaction worldwide in August ...

JAMAICA     Golding: Ambitious economic plans. Newly sworn-in Jamaican prime minister Bruce Golding is seeking ways to kick-start the island’s sluggish economy and tackle mounting social pressures over escalating unemployment and crime rates (his own forecasts predict 1,300 murders ...

UNITED STATES     Alan Greenspan: Introducing his own turbulence to the markets. Talk about good timing. Alan Greenspan’s memoirs, entitled The Age of Turbulence, topped the bestseller list at Amazon.com last month as volatility continued to rattle global financial ...

EUROPE     Trichet: Questions investors' reliance on credit ratings. The subprime mortgage crisis in the US has forced the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) to speak out about the new sources of risk being created by the ...

SOUTH KOREA     Chung: Convicted but free to go. Chung Mong-koo, chairman of Hyundai Motor, is too important to South Korea’s economy to go to jail, despite being convicted of embezzlement and breach of trust, an appeals court ruled ...