-
How do you solve a problem like bonuses? The UK’s Financial Services Authority has put forward some sensible principles but it has an almost impossible job, writes Gary Jenkins. A faster jobs merry-go-round could be just one of the unintended consequences of its attempts to tie pay-outs to risk taking.
-
Tom Montag, the new head of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s investment bank is expected to name his senior management team at the beginning of September. With the firm’s integration largely complete, and investment bankers already able to call on balance sheet firepower, insiders are excited about the prospects for a fresh start, writes David Rothnie.
-
For all the talk of emerging markets and European potential, the US is still the market that matters most in investment banking, argues David Rothnie. That makes BarCap’s Lehman acquisition look smarter than ever.
-
An aggressive lending strategy focused on a select group of clients that is designed to maximise capital markets and advisory revenues — it’s page one of the investment banking play-book, 2009 edition. But while many are still trying, BNP Paribas has the wallet-share growth to prove it works, writes David Rothnie.
-
Zurich Finance priced a callable lower tier two deal last week in yet another encouraging sign that the once-moribund subordinated market is returning to health. But while undoubtedly a positive development, dated callable deals are more likely to be museum pieces than everyday flow.
-
Despite Citi being the biggest victim of the financial crisis, its global and European investment banking business is holding up well, with debt capital markets starring particularly brightly. But as David Rothnie reports, many in the firm are getting fed up with the endless reshuffles and perpetual crisis in the executive suite on Wall Street.
-
US banks reported bumper profits last week, with some boasting of how they had been able to repay their TARP funds. But regulators should remain vigilant while banks are still relying on one-off gains and exceptional items for profitability
-
Massive books and sharply tightening spreads are making the FIG market look, if not like a bubble, at least like its booming corporate bond cousin. Even the woes of US lender CIT can’t pull investors up short.
-
Deutsche Bank is alone among the elite band of winners from the crisis to have surrendered European fee income to its rivals. David Rothnie finds out how David Fass, head of global banking for Europe, plans to put the once all-powerful German bank back on top.