Emerging & Frontier Markets
IsraelPalestine Gas Accord
MILESTONES By Luca Ventura When in early January the US secretary of state John Kerry traveled to the Middle East,...
Author: Luca Ventura
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Economics, Policy & Regulation
The Return Of Ratings Shopping?
MILESTONES By Luca Ventura The announcement came early in November. Expressing the intention to break the monopoly of the Big Three in the financial ratings industry, credit ratings organizations from five countries proclaimed the launch of ARC Ratings, ...
Capital Raising & Corporate Finance
Apple Turns To Celebrity CEO
When Apple announced back in October that it had hired Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts to lead its retail operations, the initial shock among analysts and investors wore off quickly. Though it was a surprise move, it made perfect sense.
Capital Raising & Corporate Finance
China/Ukraine: Mutual Attractions
MILESTONES By Luca Ventura With a fifth of the worlds population but only 9% of its land, China in recent...
Emerging & Frontier Markets
Serbia: Can Lazar Krstic Cut It?
NEWSMAKERS By Luca Ventura Lazar Krsti has a daunting task ahead: saving Serbia from a debt crisis. A Yale graduate with no party affiliations or political experience, the 30-year-old McKinsey associate is expected to consolidate public finances and ...
Banking
Brazil: IMF Rep Opposes Greek Bailout
MILESTONES By Luca Ventura “Implementation has been unsatisfactory in almost all areas; growth and debt sustainability assumptions continue to be over-optimistic.” It is with these incendiary comments about Greece that Paulo Nogueira Batista, the representative of Brazil and ...
Economics, Policy & Regulation
Newsmakers: Bringing Back The Old Guard At P&G
NEWSMAKERS: US By Luca Ventura When AG Lafley handpicked Robert McDonald as his successor to the top post at Procter & Gamble in 2009, he could not have predicted that just four years later he would be called ...
Banking
Newsmakers: Unknown Quantity Takes The Reins At Santander
NEWSMAKERS: SPAIN ByLuca Ventura Appointed as chief executive of Santander in 2002, Alfredo Senz took less than a decade to...
Capital Raising & Corporate Finance
Newsmakers: Economic Reformer Tackles Domestic Pressures
NEWSMAKERS: CHINA By Luca Ventura As China’s economy faces its slowest growth in more than a decade, the focus turns to the new Finance minister, Lou Jiwei. Lou, 63, has arguably the highest international profile among prime minister ...
Banking
Milestone: The World’S Oldest Surviving Bank Faces A Bleak Future
MILESTONE: ITALY By Luca Ventura The oldest bank in the world, Tuscany’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena, came close to ending its 540-year history late in January, when it revealed losses of up to €750 million ($1 billion) caused ...
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
Lagarde Changes Tack On Use Of Capital Controls
MILESTONES: IMF By Luca Ventura “Temporary capital controls might prove useful,” Christine Lagarde said to the audience gathered at the Malaysian Economic Association in Kuala Lumpur in November. Lagarde at the IMF takes a marked departure on cross-border ...