Search results for

Curtis Mewbourne, Executive Vice President, argues that a structural shift to corporate and domestic financing is underway

The combined net profits of banks operating in Mexico stood at 13.6 billion Mexican pesos ($1.2 billion) in the first quarter of 2006, up 22.9 % on the previous year, according to Mexico's banks and securities' commission. Profits were boosted mainly by interest income, which grew by 21.2% on the previous year to 38 billion pesos ($3.3 billion), and a 16.4% rise in commission income to 12.5 billion ($1.1 billion). Mexican banks’ total assets stood at 2.3 trillion pesos ($204.7 billion) at the end of the first quarter of 2006.

Turkey followed up a 175 basis point rate hike earlier in the month with an extra 200 basis points to bring the policy rate up to 17%. The Monetary Policy Committee acted in an extraordinary meeting yesterday following a spell of currency volatility. Markets last week had reacted negatively to the outcome of the regular MPC meeting when borrowing costs were left unchanged.

When Mexico's state oil company Pemex sold the first of what turned out to be a string of perpetual non-call five year bonds to Asian retail investors in autumn 2004, some bankers saw it as a deal that brought a whole new investor base to emerging market debt. They were right. But the more farsighted among them also realised demand could vanish just as quickly, and in May it happened, after the leap in US Treasury rates. Caren Chesler investigates if the market is likely to reopen any time soon.

Life is good for private equity sponsors. They have more cheap debt than they could hope to wish for, their banks are working harder than ever designing innovative structures and now they're opening up access to retail investors. Tanya Angerer reports.

Whether driven by mergers and acquisitions, organic growth or simply by refinancing, hybrid capital issuance from financial institutions has continued apace since the beginning of the year. Hélène Durand looks at what makes this market tick and whether recent volatility will shut the door to issuers.

2006 is going to be a record year for the corporate bond market. Huge volumes of deals will mature and issuers look set to tap and retap the sector, reports Alistair Dawber.

With swap spreads widening and heavy supply, investors have had the upper hand in the covered bond market this year. Issuers, particularly from Spain, are having to be flexible to get deals away, although a thinner pipeline should ease the pressure. Neil Day reports.

Increasingly volatile conditions are making it tougher for sovereign, supranational and agency issuers to tap the capital markets. But, as Hélène Durand reports, nimble issuers can still get their deals away.

The president of the German central bank tells Emerging Markets that lessons must learned from from the eurozone's creation.

Dresdner on Central Europe's interest rate risks; Axa, Atlantis and Credit Suisse on investor confidence and Standard Chartered on currencies

Brazil’s current account surplus narrowed in May and the central bank said it reduced the 2006 forecast as foreign businesses repatriated profits. The surplus of $475 million, or 1.5% of GDP, compares with a $597 million surplus last year. The central bank’s head of researcg Altamir Lopes said the bank cut its prediction for the 2006 figure to $8.1 billion from $8.5 billion because it expects companies based abroad to take advantage of a stronger real to pull out profits. Foreign direct investment beat market expectations to grow by $1.6 billion last month.