Heavier capital requirements and tighter funding conditions for European universal banks have increased the importance of debt capital markets rather than bank loans for European companies. Morgan Stanley's co-head of global fixed-income markets is working to make sure the bank can seize the opportunity.

In the past three years, South Africa’s economy has struggled. Its growth is slower than that of many other African countries, and the shooting of 34 miners in August exposed a simmering tension that exists within its boundaries. Yet while there is no quick fix, investors remain attracted by the strength of the country's institutions. 

Windows for bond issuance were fleeting during the second quarter of 2012, but the Barclays public sector team opted to jump in with five tranches of debt on one day.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has come under increasing pressure in the wake of police shooting 34 striking miners in August. But finance minister Pravin Gordhan says his party’s record in government is impressive and that it has done much to develop the country since 1994.

Former Brazil president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says the rapid growth of emerging economies such as Brazil is changing the global economic order, but this reality is yet to be acknowledged by the world's major economic institutions, where Europeans hold a disproportionate amount of power.

The Swiss National Bank has been the most aggressive central bank in a developed economy when it comes to seeking to stop its safe haven status from driving excessive currency appreciation, but many other such institutions are using other, more varied techniques.

The EBRD has taken on a new region of operation at a time of unprecedented economic turbulence, but it has the resources and experience to make investments that can help transform troubled economies.