Investor appetite for Dutch paper is strong but getting a slice of action can be tricky with the low level of offerings. Michael Marray reports.

Agence France Trésor has been a pioneer of European inflation-linked bonds. Natasha de Teran interviews chief executive Bertrand de Mazičres about the development of these debt instruments.

Although sovereign issuers have so far dominated the inflation-linked bond market, the number and diversity of issuers is beginning to grow along with the investor base.

Following a critical reorganisation, Brian Lawson, chief operating officer fixed income, Europe, at Nomura, says the business is once again ready to recapture its pre-1998 position. He talked to Geraldine Lambe about the focus of building intelligent, long-term businesses.

As the economic good times roll in Russia, foreign banks are either bolstering their current operations or looking for a way in, says Geraldine Lambe.

In last month’s HBOS securitisation, Citigroup proved that a long-term relationship is still the rock on which deal-making is built. Mark Pelham talks to Citi’s team about the largest retail mortgage-backed securities deal ever seen.

In the wake of a tough market and a poor reception for its new-look Golf, German carmaker Volkswagen has revealed a downbeat outlook for 2004 and announced plans to cut expenditure by 10%. Yet, it seems, analysts are still sceptical. Geraldine Lambe reports.

It may be a bit esoteric as an intellectual exercise for day one in a new job. All the same, when Helen Weir takes up the post of finance director of Lloyds TSB, she might find the relationship between the bank’s credit spreads and the price of its equity options rather interesting.

Saga Group, a UK company that specialises in the grey market (hair that is, not off-exchange deals) has teamed up with hedge fund manager RAB Capital to launch two absolute return funds. Even granny it seems is waking up to the fact that the standard equity unit trust is a bit of swizz and rarely returns enough to cover the exorbitant charges.

Communists don’t usually bother capitalists these days but in the Portuguese parliament Communist deputy Lino de Carvalho has been giving Vitor Martins, a consultant to Citigroup, a hard time over the bank’s contract to securitise uncollected tax and insurance payments.