Credit Suisse's co-head of investment banking in Brazil, José Olympio Pereira, discusses the withdrawal of Brasil Travel's anticipated initial public offering and the state of the country's equity capital market, which has not seen a deal for more than six months.

Many of Latin America's high-net-worth individuals are repatriating their funds and an increasing number of foreign investors are targeting the region, thanks to its rapidly expanding economy. With such demand for local product providers, domestic firms are finding themselves having to pit their specialist knowledge against the international reach of large foreign banks, making competition tough.

African banks are increasingly looking outside of their domestic markets, and many of the continent's biggest lenders are now active in multiple countries, buoyed by greater access to vast unbanked populations and a more stable political environment.

After deciding that a pure high-yield deal was prohibitively expensive for UK leisure company Center Parcs, RBS helped investors get comfortable with a whole business securitisation structure that other banks were giving a wide berth.

An increasing number of financial institutions from international banks to local specialist players are developing sharia-compliant structured products, offering investors limited downside risk and high returns. But as the uptake for such products increases, so does the pressure of ensuring that they are 100% sharia-friendly.

Barclays built a multi-asset execution platform out of the Lehman acquisition, and the debt specialist in the bank’s two-man management team for global finance in the EMEA region is relishing the opportunity to deploy that platform if merger and acquisition activity picks up.

As Asia's population grows richer, the continent's wealth management industry is struggling to keep pace and meet the needs of the ever-expanding number of high-net-worth individuals. Gone are the days of simply poaching such staff, and many banks are now focusing on producing home-grown talent.

A buy-and-hold mentality is thwarting Brazil’s debt capital market, limiting access to long-term funding in the country. A number of initiatives have been launched to help deepen the market, but will they help it meet the mounting finance requirements of domestic development projects and local corporates?