Five questions about the Goldman 1MDB settlement
The agreement between Goldman Sachs and the Malaysian government over the US bank’s work with 1MDB has inspired a number of ‘Goldman settles for $3.9 billion’ headlines. There’s a bit more going on beneath the surface, and not everything is...
What GIC’s annual results tell us about sovereign wealth under Covid-19
Today (Tuesday July 28) the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), one of the biggest and most sophisticated sovereign wealth vehicles in the world, announced its full-year return to March 31 ,2020. Chief executive Lim Chow Kiat has been saying...
Venio has big ambitions for nano-credits to the unbanked
The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, together with the World Bank Group and the World Economic Forum, launched a survey during the second half of July into the impact of Covid-19...
Immigration risk is troubling for the EU and southeastern Europe
The Covid-19 crisis has raised the stakes worldwide, plunging the global economy into recession and creating unanticipated fiscal pressures for many countries already struggling with domestic problems, geopolitics and global trade wars. Consequently, analysts have downgraded Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Romania...
First judgment on 1MDB and Najib: Who knew what and when?
This week former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was sentenced to 12 years in jail after being found guilty on seven corruption counts associated with 1MDB in the Kuala Lumpur High Court. He was also fined RM210 million ($49 million)....
Wholesale banking: ABN Amro cuts now, but ING is next
Think of a European bank that needs to shrink its corporate and investment bank. Deutsche Bank or Societe Generale probably come to mind, but ABN Amro’s decision to run down all corporate banking outside Europe – and exit commodity trade...
European banks eye state debt-for-equity swaps
European Banking Federation president Jean Pierre Mustier European banks, especially in Germany, are pushing for hard-hit borrowers to have easier access to state equity support as the economic impact of the coronavirus continues. Banks have extended hundreds of billions of...
SMEs must consider real asset securitization to close financing gap
As both developed and emerging market economies struggle to recover from the first phase of the Covid emergency, finding new ways to channel financial support to small and medium-sized enteprises becomes ever more urgent. The World Bank points out that...
Jarden and Credit Suisse go their separate ways in Australia
Credit Suisse Australia and Jarden call time on their strategic partnership A 30-year alliance came to an inevitable end on Friday when Credit Suisse Australia and Jarden exited their strategic partnership. As Euromoney reported in our feature this week, the...
Special country risk survey: Lebanon on the ropes after Beirut explosion
The destroyed port in Beirut The impromptu special survey shows Lebanon’s total risk score downgraded further to less than 22 points out of a maximum 100, pushing the country deeper into the lowest of the five tiers containing the world’s...