We have already seen how an over-ambitious acquisition attempt by Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI) has led to grief. Leave aside the allegations of price fixing and wrong doing in the buying of Antonveneta shares that is currently being investigated by Milan magistrates.

The tyranny of the credit markets may be nearing an end. For some while now, CEOs have been so nervous about the ratings and performance of their bonds that they have been rather like rabbits trapped in a car’s headlights… too scared to move.

ABN AMRO has established a new market in its home country with the launch of Holland’s first structured covered bond.By Edward Russell-Walling.

Bank of America is always interested in diversification, leading it to do more issues in non-dollar markets. Its team came up with the idea of issuing US trust preferred securities in sterling and achieved upper Tier 2 pricing despite a Tier 1 classification. Edward Russell-Walling finds out how the team did it.

Government debt managers have become renowned for their clever financial gimmicks but is theend to what some commentators dub ‘fiscal massaging’ in sight? Geraldine Lambe investigates.

Niche bond firm Greenwich Capital has a mutually beneficial relationship with parent bank Royal Bank of Scotland, as co-CEO Jay Levine explains to Sophie Roell.

Buoyant bond and stock markets, as well as legal complications, have discouraged project finance growth. But, as Ben Aris reports from Moscow, the sector is predicted to grow swiftly in the near future.

Anti-fraud initiatives can end up making the banking environment more risky rather than less, claims David Porter, head of security and risk for the consultancy Detica.

Bankers are invited to watch a horror movie called Day of the MiFIDs. These are Brussels-based MiFIDs that became so enthused by the idea of a transparent market that they decided to implement it by force across the whole of the European empire.

Economists are concerned about the failure of the price mechanism in international capital markets. Governments are highly indebted, it is said, and interest rates and bond yields are not rising to the occasion.