Cover Story : Full Steam Ahead
It might seem as if we live in risky times, but financial markets are now less volatile than they have been in decades. How has this come about, and is it sustainable? If you read the newspapers, you could be ...
Cover Story
Features
Features : Banking on Responsibility
Lending Policies / Banking on Responsibility Increasingly, banks are discovering that strict lending policies can be a powerful risk management tool. Whether they are pulling together a complicated financing package for a hydropower dam half way around the planet or ...
Features : Best Hotels and Airlines
The Rise of the Smart Business Traveler
Canny travelers are searching out the best bargains.
Features : Global Custodians Focus on Innovation
As they strive to find ever more creative ways to serve their clients, custodians are increasingly finding themselves on the cutting edge of technological innovation. Invest in technology or die. That’s the clear message from global custody executives. “The technology ...
Features : Terrorism Insurance / Holes in the Safety Net
Despite the lessons learned in recent terror attacks, companies are still unprotected against the catastrophic losses they could face in the event of another attack. Four years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and ...
Features : Vying for a Share of the Islamic Finance Market
Players Vie for a Prime Slice of a Promising Market Global and local banks are jostling for position in a rapidly growing and potentially lucrative market. Islamic banking is more than 20 years old, but the terrorist attacks on the ...
Features : World’s Best Internet Banks: Part One
The World’s Best Internet Banks, 2005 In the first of a two-part series, Global Finance identifies the best online corporate and consumer banks by country and product or service category. With all the headlines about identity theft, phishing attacks, computer ...
Emerging Markets
Milestones : Venezuela’s Debt Proposal Gets Cool Reception
Venezuela Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez Skeptics are questioning the rationale behind the Venezuelan government’s proposed debt alliance for Latin American emerging markets. Its chief cheerleader, Hugo Chavez, claims the move should bolster emerging market debt prices and provide financing for the ...
Corporate Finance : Foreign Exchange
China’s Revaluation: Baby Step or Great Leap? China’s modest revaluation of slightly more than 2% in the value of the yuan against the dollar was either a baby step or a giant leap forward, analysts say. The adjustment in the ...
Emerging Markets : Argentina’s Bonds Attract Investors
News Nencioni: Peso is stable Argentina’s inflation-linked bonds have caught the eye of global investors seeking high returns, triggering a flood of foreign capital into the country and forcing the central bank to mop up huge inflows of cash to ...
Emerging Markets : China’s “Google” Finds a Price for Itself
DR News Baidu.com, China’s most-popular Web search engine, rose 354% in its August 5 debut, making it the hottest initial public offering in five years. While the IPO for a 13% stake in the company, which is patterned after Google, ...
Emerging Markets : Company to Watch: Teva Pharmaceuticals/Israel
A Penny Saved is a Shekel Earned Jerusalem-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries signed a definitive agreement on July 25 to acquire Miami, Florida-based IVAX for about $7.4 billion, creating the world’s largest generic-drug company. Assuming that the transaction is completed, Teva ...
Emerging Markets : Consolidation Heats Up
Russia Kasyanov: Under pressure In the latest round of oil and gas industry consolidation, Gazprom received Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official blessing to take over Sibneft, the country’s fifth-largest oil producer. Meanwhile, Sibneft announced it would pay out a record ...
Emerging Markets : Eager Investors Catch a Dose of IPO Fever
China Another public health scare in China In a long-awaited move, the Chinese central bank modified the yuan’s exchange rate on July 21 for the first time in a decade. China’s currency will now no longer be pegged directly to ...
Emerging Markets : Markets Shrug Off Lula’s Political Woes
Brazil Troubled: President Lula da Silva While Brazilian corporates have stayed clear of a political scandal surrounding key leaders of President Lula Da Silva’s ruling Workers’ Party (PT), the ongoing fallout may be taking a toll on the country’s economic ...
Emerging Markets : Monsoon Fury Inundates India’s Financial Capital
India India’s monsoon:: Too late and too strong In June the Indian markets were worried about the impact of a delay in the monsoon, but when it arrived in July, its impact was unprecedented. Mumbai, the financial capital, was inundated ...
The World's Best Internet Banks - Part 1
Features : World’s Best Internet Banks: Part One
The World’s Best Internet Banks, 2005 In the first of a two-part series, Global Finance identifies the best online corporate and consumer banks by country and product or service category. With all the headlines about identity theft, phishing attacks, computer ...
Milestones
Milestones : Venezuela’s Debt Proposal Gets Cool Reception
Venezuela Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez Skeptics are questioning the rationale behind the Venezuelan government’s proposed debt alliance for Latin American emerging markets. Its chief cheerleader, Hugo Chavez, claims the move should bolster emerging market debt prices and provide financing for the ...
Milestones : Will America’s China Bashers Harm the US Economy?
United States/China When China’s CNOOC withdrew its $18.5 billion all-cash offer to buy US oil company Unocal in early August, it cited “the political environment in the US” as the reason for not sweetening its bid to top a rival ...
Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance : Corporate Debt
SunGard Sells $3 Billion In Biggest Deal in Years Software provider SunGard Data Systems sold $3 billion in notes on July 27 in a three-part offering that was the largest issue in the high-yield debt market in more than six ...
Corporate Finance : Corporate Financing Focus - Mergers & Acquisitions
Big Cross-Border Mergers May Remain Rare Occurrences In Europe’s Financial Sector When Abbey National, then the sixth-largest bank in the UK, agreed in July 2004 to a takeover bid of about $15.5 billion from Banco Santander, Spain’s biggest bank, analysts ...
Corporate Finance : Foreign Exchange
China’s Revaluation: Baby Step or Great Leap? China’s modest revaluation of slightly more than 2% in the value of the yuan against the dollar was either a baby step or a giant leap forward, analysts say. The adjustment in the ...
Corporate Finance : Global Equity/DRs
Global IPO Volume Stronger Than Last Year The volume of initial public offerings worldwide this year is running ahead of last year’s pace, with Credit Suisse First Boston climbing to the top of the global IPO league tables, according to ...
Newsmakers
Newsmakers : IFAC Offers Lifeline for Beleaguered Accountants
New York IFAC president Graham Ward Executives who are still bogged down in Sarbanes-Oxley and IFRS compliance are probably thinking the regulators and the world of accountancy professionals have said all they need to say on transparency and accountability of ...
Newsmakers : US Company Sues European Central Bank Over Euro Notes
United States/European Union Pat White Just when currency traders thought the euro was about to get over its recent woes, the beleaguered single currency has fund itself in another crisis. This time, however, it’s an identity crisis. In a lawsuit ...