Never have forecasters been as lost in their predictions for the world economy as at present. The US is said to be in recovery mode but the burgeoning current account deficit was the major topic of concern at last month’s World Bank/IMF meetings in Washington. Fittingly, it is the subject of our lead editorial in this issue.
Against this backdrop, the credit markets are struggling to track a direction and our Credit Risk 1000 listing of major credits by spread performance – this month’s cover story – is driven by an array of different factors: the oil price, the outlook for China, the crisis in the insurance sector and the downgrades in the auto sector. Thanks, as usual, go to data provider CMA for producing the ranking.
November’s issue of The Banker is full of different opinions about the future. Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff considers the next emerging markets debt crisis in Viewpoint. The Bracken column looks at how the era of cheap Chinese goods will not last forever. In TechVision, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein’s global chief information officer, JP Rangaswami, looks forward to a world in which bankers can be contacted anywhere at anytime using a single piece of communications technology, and in which information of every type is searchable and retrievable. Let’s hope the economy holds good for this high-tech outcome.
One man with a vision for his country is Chile’s president Ricardo Lagos, interviewed for The Banker by Karina Robinson. Mr Lagos has achieved what many world leaders have found impossible: running a credible economic policy that wins plaudits from Washington as well as delivering social benefits to the population.
In capital markets, we interview Zenji Nakamura, Nomura’s head of global markets Europe, about his firm’s coming renaissance. And our Team of the Month looks at how Citigroup and Goldman Sachs handled the purchase of UK cement producer RMC by Mexico’s Cemex. A new feature is our issuer strategy column, which this month looks at GMAC.
In a slight rejigging of our sections, FX & Treasury becomes FX & Derivatives – in which we study the new BIS report on FX – to better deal with risk management issues; and our Global Securities Services section becomes Cash & Securities services, as a reflection of current bank organisation.
In our global coverage, we consider how Germany’s Mittelstand can benefit from structured finance and we list Foreign Banks in London. Stephen Timewell reports from Australia on the election, Monica Campbell studies how Texas-based banks are serving the Hispanic community and we carry a ranking of the Top 100 Arab banks. Retail strategy is an interview with Intesa’s Massimo Arrighetti and our supplement is Europe’s Hot Market in Covered Bonds. It’s a busy issue.
