Global financial crisis: Did they get their house in order?
Ten years ago, as Euromoney was writing its 2008 jumbo issue for the World Bank/IMF meetings, it was clear that the global banking industry was in crisis. Lehman Brothers had collapsed, Merrill Lynch was rescued at the last minute. What...
Can the unthinkable become reality in Malaysia?
One to watch: Malaysia’s prime minister Mahathir Mohamad As a Malaysian Bob Dylan might have put it: “The times, they are a-changin’.” And how, in the country that likes to describe itself as ‘Truly Asian’, and which is one of...
Australian regulators the biggest losers from interim Royal Commission
When the publication of a 1,000-page damning account of bank greed and misbehaviour results in bank shares having their best day in recent memory, you begin to wonder if the world has gone awry. Kenneth Hayne Such was the response...
Capital markets pipeline builds in Russia as sanctions threat looms
Another year, another Russia shutdown: after two years of brisk flows, capital markets activity came to an abrupt halt in April when the US imposed sanctions on Oleg Deripaska, Viktor Vekselberg and their associated companies. Eurobond issuance dried up, a...
Sideways: Why does ‘Killer’ Karofsky get second billing in UBS’s The Odd Couple?
When UBS had to replace its investment bank head Andrea Orcel, who is leaving to become CEO of Santander, it came up with a convenient internal solution to the succession problem. UBS group CEO Sergio Ermotti may nevertheless have set...
Infrastructure: Japan and China fight over ‘the soul’ of Asia
President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte (left) with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in 2016 When the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, visited Beijing in October 2016, shook hands with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and announced the “separation”...
Indonesia banking: Time to revisit the sins of the fathers
If you cast your gaze over any recent banking crisis and look at what is left, one question worth asking is whether or not the regulators who cleaned up the multi-billion-dollar mess should allow those responsible, or their heirs, or...
Santander brings shock and Orcel
Of all the executive moves mooted in the corridors and backrooms of European banking, the idea that Andrea Orcel might become chief executive of Santander Group had rarely if ever been mentioned. That explains the incredulity that greeted news of...
Private equity blossoms in Vietnam
In the world of Vietnamese private equity, everyone is on the prowl for the next Mobile World. When Ho Chi Minh City-based Mekong Capital shelled out $3.5 million for a 35% stake in the firm in 2007, it was just...
Will Indonesia’s infrastructure bottleneck ever be unclogged?
Euromoney was in Jakarta in August when a local colleague spotted one of the city’s rapid mass transit trains, currently undergoing final testing, for the first time. “It’s here!” she shouted, jumping out of the taxi to take a photo....