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JPMORGAN KICKS OFF A MERRY-GO-ROUND, CSFB JUMPS ON...

Getting the IPO of the Bank of China away with considerable oversubscription was a major achievement in a difficult market. But in some ways its success was assured – a combination of goodwill from big anchor names, followed by a typical herd mentality among the retail investor base. It tells us a lot about how investors make their decisions in Hong Kong. By Pauline Loong.

Sourced from “Introduction to Islamic Finance” by HSBC

Within the Asia Pacific region, Malaysia is by far the biggest centre for Islamic finance. Its models may influence other Asian Muslim societies like Indonesia and Brunei, and the provision of services in countries with large minority Muslim populations such as Thailand. Its approaches and principles are different to those in the Gulf, and it epitomizes the challenge of building a debt market within Shari'ah principles – a foundation which recently led to the most important Islamic bond yet produced.

The mention of Islamic finance conjures up a range of responses. There are those who believe it is one of the fastest-growing areas of international finance, with hundreds of billions of dollars in investible assets and peerless growth rates – even that it can change the world. There are others who think it is inherently flawed and irrelevant; still more who seem to think the very expression is synonymous with money laundering and worse. But recent deals and the establishment of international institutions may bring consistency of opinion to this much-misunderstood field. By Matthew Montagu-Pollock in Malaysia and Chris Wright in the Gulf.

Last month we printed an interview with Dorodjatun Kuntoro-Jakti, Indonesia's co-ordinating minister covering finance and the economy, who had just signed an agreement with the IMF to extend its involvement in Indonesia to 2003. But Dorodjatun's views are not shared by all in his party, and in particular one of his predecessors, minister of state for national development planning Kwik Kian Gie. In this excerpt from a recent address, he states his case against further involvement with the IMF. He didn't get his way, but his views make interesting reading.

Maxis Communications made headlines in our last edition with a US$803 million IPO – the largest in Malaysia since 1996. However, long before this deal was completed, the Maxis group was already breaking new ground with its original bridge loan and refinancing facility. By Fiona Haddock.

One year after commencing a difficult restructuring across Asia, Bank of America is smiling again. Why? It still doesn't appear on the headline deals, doesn't dominate our forex or cash management polls, and isn't the first name that springs to mind as the leader in almost any area of finance in the region. But its latest numbers are out, and they are starting to look very promising. Colm McCarthy is Bank of America's Singapore-based president for Asia, and he met with Asiamoney in late July. An affable Irishman, he is candid about the bank's strengths and weaknesses. “We said about nine months ago we were going to look at everything across Asia: where we were, what we wanted to do, how we wanted to position ourselves,” he says. “We've been in Asia a long time – 50 years plus – but we stood back and said we're a little bit too unfocused, with a little bit too many historical things.”

There is a new sport among Singapore analysts: predicting the future shape of Temasek's listed GLCs. Following the announcement of the Temasek charter on July 3, we contrast the opinions of four different houses on what comes next.

Co-heads. They're everywhere. Perhaps it's a function of banking consolidation, but it seems to Asiamoney that the industry has been hedging its leadership bets. There is scarcely an example of a major investment bank that doesn't have at least one senior position shared by at least two people. Now, Asiamoney knows its football, and has seen the carnage that results from attempting to get two people to manage the same team. With this in mind, we decided to find two senior co-heads in Asian investment banking and ask them just how they go about working together without friction, overlap and divided leadership.

Just how big is Asia's hedge fund industry? In the absence of hard and fast numbers, we went to the experts. Niall Shiner, one of the founders of Eureka, a hedge fund consultancy, casts his eye over this untransparent sector – hedge funds and alternative investments in general – and tries to establish some solid facts.