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Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

M&A: Record Spin-Offs Boost Global M&A

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS By Gordon Platt Thanks in large part to record levels of spin-offs and divestitures, global mergers and acquisitions achieved a 2% gain in 2012 to $2.6 trillion, according to Thomson Reuters. ...

Banking

Market Focus: Asian Investment Banking

ANOTHER LEAN YEAR By Arthur Clennam Investment banks in Asia are facing a reduced deal pipeline and slashing their fixed-income, currencies and commodities units. But a flurry of small-scale Chinese IPOs in Hong Kong could add cheer to ...

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

Milestone: Basel III Liquidity Reprieve Welcomed By Most

MILESTONESGLOBAL By Luca Ventura “For the first time in regulatory history, we have a truly global minimum standard for bank liquidity,” announced the head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Bank of England governor Mervyn King, during a ...

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

Milestone: Comesa Seeks Funding From Within To Drive Down Trade Finance Costs

MILESTONES: AFRICA By Alfred Sayila With member states’ foreign exchange reserves reaching a record $112 billion in 12 years, countries in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), Africa’s leading trade body, may soon have a cheap new ...

Banking

Milestone: Enforcement Will Only Get Tougher Under New FSA Regime

MILESTONES: UK By Anita Hawser After four years under a shadow, the UK’s Financial Services Authority is once again being held up as a model financial regulator — both for its principles-based approach to reporting and for its ability to ...

Economics, Policy & Regulation

Milestone: Growing Chorus At Home Urges UK To Break With Brussels

MILESTONES: EUROPE By Valentina Pasquali On the tail of the European economic crisis, the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union is nearing a breaking point. While in Brussels some members are pushing for further integration, in ...

Emerging & Frontier Markets

Milestone: Drama-Free Year Expected For Asean

MILESTONES: BRUNEI By Thomas Clouse The small country of Brunei Darussalam must navigate challenging terrain in the coming months after taking over the chairmanship of Asean at the beginning of the year. Brunei, whose approximately 400,000 citizens enjoy one ...

Economics, Policy & Regulation

Newsmaker: Belka Navigates Choppy Economic Waters in Poland

NEWSMAKERS: POLAND By Justin Keay Poland’s central bank governor, Marek Belka, marked the start of the New Year with an interview to a leading business newspaper in which he claimed Poland had experienced “the perfect slowdown” rather than the slump ...

Economics, Policy & Regulation

Newsmaker: Blast From The Past As Park Geun-Hye Is Elected PM

NEWSMAKERS: SOUTH KOREA By Thomas Clouse South Korea will swear in 60-year-old Park Geun-hye as the country’s first female prime minister this month, after she narrowly defeated her more liberal competitor, Moon Jae-in, in the general election in December. ...

Economics, Policy & Regulation

Newsmaker: New Treasury Secretary Lew Lacks Private Sector Expertise

NEWSMAKERSUS By Valentina Pasquali With high-stakes negotiations with Congress under way, US president Barack Obama is bringing in a new treasury secretary. Lew: An experienced political negotiator Jacob Lew, 57, was the White House’s chief of ...

Economics, Policy & Regulation

Newsmaker: Venezuelan Successor Fails To Allay Concerns Over Power Vacuum

NEWSMAKERS: VENEZUELA By Valentina Pasquali As Hugo Chávez’s 13-year-long domination of Venezuelan politics is overshadowed by ill health, speculation over who will carry on his legacy is largely focused on vice president Nicolás Maduro Moros, whom Chávez himself appointed as his ...

Emerging & Frontier Markets

Regional Focus Caucasus

BEYOND OLD BOUNDARIES By Justin Keay Oil wealth, a favorable location and buoyant economic growth have thrust Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia onto the international stage. However, regional conflicts, political tensions and corruption are never far away. “The ...