Pre-migration untagged articles

Santander’s investment banking business performed well in the first nine months of 2012, contributing 10% of the group’s gross income. However, as earnings began to slow not just in continental Europe but also in Latin America and the UK, the bank posted a 21% quarterly drop in pre-tax profits.

Credit Suisse said on Thursday that it is increasing its cost cutting programme by a further Sfr1bn ($1.07bn), announcing an additional Sfr500m of cuts to come in 2014 and 2015.

Italy broke records and wowed bankers this week as its third ever BTP Italia — government bonds linked to domestic inflation — enjoyed phenomenal demand. With all orders to be allocated the sovereign is set to print more than €18bn of paper.

Municipality Finance sold its first ever Egyptian pound denominated debt this week, becoming only the second agency to do so. Investors are keen gain synthetic exposure to exotic currencies to pick up yield, said dealers.

Dealers of private EMTNs: Non-syndicated deals for <= €300m excluding financial repackaged SPVs, GSE issuers, self-led deals and issues with a term of < 365 days

Markets groaned at Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s results on Wednesday — net income of precisely $0.00 a share — then smiled at them, before deciding by the end of the day that they didn’t care. The bank’s share price fell by 1.5%, then was up by a similar amount, before ending the day unchanged at $9.44.

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan this week rejected a private members’ bill proposing a new covered bond framework and the adoption of the Danish balance principle, although Irish officials will investigate whether some elements of the bill could be rolled out in the future.

Higher net revenues in investment banking and trading led Goldman Sachs to pre-tax profits of $2.298bn for the third quarter of 2012 as it recovered from the $730m pre-tax loss it registered in the same period in 2011.

Investment bank revenue growth helped Citi break a run of three consecutive quarters of year-on-year profit declines, it reported on Monday. However, the results were overshadowed by the surprise announcement soon after that CEO Vikram Pandit was leaving the firm (see back page story).