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Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

FRANCE: WINEMAKER PLANS IPO USING CROWDFUNDING

Capital Markets | Equity Capital Raising Burgundy vineyard Domaine Chanzy expects to be the first company to conduct an initial public offering using crowdfunding, which enables companies to raise money from members of the public, typically via the Internet.

Banking

SANTANDERS CLOUD GAMBIT: WILL MORE BANKS FOLLOW THEIR LEAD?

Trends | Global Banking On the surface at least, Spain’s Banco Santander and Cloud storage providers do not appear to have much in common.

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

McDonalds CEO: Brit Becomes The New “Big Mac”

McDonalds appointment of British-born Steve Easterbrook as its new CEO has both surprised and delighted analysts—concerned by the burger behemoth’s first annual decline in 30 years.

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

EU TAX REFORM: VAT REGULATION HITS SMES

Milestones | European Union Regulators had Web giants like Google and Apple in their sites when they framed a new value-added tax (VAT) regulation for businesses selling digital products into the European Union

Banking

SANTANDERS MASSIVE CAPITAL INCREASE: MORE EUROPEAN BANKS TO FOLLOW

Trends | Bank Capitalization As Spaniards returned from the Los Reyes Magos (Epiphany) holiday, Spain’s Santander, Europe’s biggest bank, sold the equivalent of nearly 10% of its capital in one day, raising €7.5 billion ($8.7 billion) in cash and bringing required ratios in line with those of the banking industry.

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

SEPA: A SPRINGBOARD TO REAL-TIME PAYMENTS

Special Report | SEPA With SEPA migration projects mostly completed, it is time for treasurers to start thinking about the next steps in regulatory compliance and process automation.

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

‘GOOGLE TAX’ ON MULTINATIONALS HEATS UP GLOBAL CORPORATE TAX DEBATE

UK Corporate Tax | Trends Britain likely will succeed in taxing multinational companies at a 25% rate on their UK operations beginning in April, without violating international tax treaties, analysts say, but tensions are rising between countries on suspicions that MNCs are engaging in global tax evasion.

Economics, Policy & Regulation

ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING FIGHTER CHAIRS KEY VATICAN UNIT

Vatican | Newsmakers René Brülhart, known as the “James Bond of the financial world” for his high-profile role in cases such as the return of assets from Saddam Hussein to post-war Iraq and the uncovering of the Siemens bribery scandal, has become chairman of the Vatican’s anti-money-laundering unit.

Banking

ING COMPLETES BAILOUT REPAYMENT

Netherlands | Milestone As a part of the restructuring agreement between ING, the Dutch government and the European Commission, ING agreed to several of what it called “bans,” according to an email sent by a company spokesman to Global Finance

Award Winners

KEEPING DATA SAFE: PAOLO DI GRAZIA, FINECOBANK

Website design is becoming more important than ever, particularly in areas such as ease of use, security features, integrated functions and aesthetics.

Capital Raising & Corporate Finance

SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISTS JOIN FORCES ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Shareholder Activism | Management Shareholder activism—when investors in a company use their equity as a lever to pressure management—is booming and will grow dramatically on both sides of the Atlantic through mid-2016

Economics, Policy & Regulation

CYPRUS BEGINS LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY

COUNTRY REPORT | CYPRUS Amid continuing harsh austerity measures, things are—very slowly—starting to recover, alongside restructuring that will change the focus of the economy. GDP in 2014 should contract by 3.5% before flattening out next year, with 0.2% growth forecast.