LATEST ARTICLES FROM SOPHIE ROELL
Listing shows how far and how fast China has travelled
When China begins listing its giant state-owned banks on capitalist stock exchanges, the world has definitely changed beyond all recognition. The story of China Construction Bank’s (CCB) route to the Hong Kong bourse is full of thrills and spills. Contributing editor Sophie Roell recounts the entire tale on page 76.
Deutsche rides on wave of euro deals
Deutsche Bank’s successful euro issuance for Brazil helped the dollar market to rally, setting the stage for it to do subsequent dollar and euro deals for a diverse range of issuers. Sophie Roell reports.The Greeks may have won Euro 2004 but the Germans are firmly in the lead when it comes to euro issuance out of Latin America.
THE NEW MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
As they cut back investment bankers’ jobs, Wall Street’s bulge bracket firms strengthened their compliance departments to cope with growing regulation and scrutiny, and the rising salaries have begun to attract staff from regulatory bodies into corporate territory. By Sophie Roell.
Yoshiyuki Fujisawa
Since Merrill Lynch acquired Yamaichi Securities in 1998, it has not been an easy passage for the firm’s Japanese business. But, as Yoshiyuki Fujisawa tells Sophie Roell, this year, the tide has turned.It may have been a long time coming, but Merrill Lynch’s Japanese operations have had a bumper year. The bank chalked up about $130m in profits, making it the most lucrative foreign brokerage in Japan. “We enjoyed a good year last year,” says Yoshiyuki Fujisawa, chairman of Merrill Lynch Japan Securities. “And hopefully, this year will be [good], too.”
Rick Leaman
After growing through acquisition, Europe’s UBS Investment Bank decided that to make its mark in the tough US market, it had to beef up its M&A practice. Rick Leaman, co-head of global M&A, talks to Sophie Roell about the strategy that UBS used to compete successfully with the global giants.
Bondholders fight back
Two and a half years after Argentina’s debt default, creditors are up in arms over the country’s offer to pay back only a quarter of the Ł82bn it owes. But the government has so far refused to budge. Sophie Roell reports.It’s not a promising sign in any negotiations when one party is not willing to talk to the other and both sides seem as unreasonable as each other. Furious with the paltry amount the Argentine government is offering for the $82bn in debt it defaulted on in December 2001, the Global Committee of Argentina Bondholders (GCAB), grouping together holders of about $37bn in debt, is fighting back with its own idea of a fair settlement.
Swiftness is key to Mexican deal
A close relationship and an ability to act fast when market conditions become favourable enabled Barclays Capital’s New York-based Latin American team to offer Petrotemex a range of options to refinance existing debt. Sophie Roell talks to the team.It is a truism that timing is critical for any deal but for Latin American issuers, it is even more critical than for most. Volatility in the region is high, markets open and close quickly, and great opportunities can turn into missed chances in a matter of weeks.
What will shape the new face of the US equity markets?
Wall Street’s equity markets have come through some tough times but now firms are eager for a fresh start. Sophie Roell reports from New York on their potential for a new image.The word ‘crisis’, in Chinese, combines the character for danger with the one for opportunity. For Wall Street’s equity business, the last three years have certainly had an element of danger: a paltry number of IPOs and the erosion of commissions on the brokerage side to virtually unsustainable levels. And that’s not to mention a regulatory investigation that brought into question the value of sell-side research, and is now causing further alarm by focusing on the ‘soft’ money brokers get for services rendered to institutional clients.
Leap of faith opens up a new market
With hindsight, Deutsche’s foray into the unknown – a joint venture with Fannie Mae to market an inflation-linked bond to institutional investors – seems as if it could not have failed. But it did not always look that way. Sophie Roell reports.When Jeanmarie Genirs, managing director for US agency trading at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, left for work on the morning of February 4, she did something she never does: she asked her husband to wish her luck. “I need good luck, because today is either going to be a really good day or a really bad one,” she told him.