It’s official. CNBC’s on-air editor, Charles “Who you callin’ a poison gasbag?” Gasparino, is defecting to Fox Business.
Here’s the statement: Read more
A date for Asian diaries:
Event: Russia – Capital Raising and Investment Summit – Hong Kong Read more
We admit it: we’re somewhat obsessed with commercial real estate here on FT Alphaville – but not without good reason.
So we were reassured to note that the topic of US commercial real estate is also preoccupying Guy Debelle, an assistant governor at the Reserve Bank of Australia. Read more
Structured finance is so flat cap these days…
The Co-operative Bank is delighted to have today successfully launched and priced Silk Road Finance Number One, a GBP 2.5bn prime residential mortgage-backed securities transaction. The transaction re-establishes The Co-operative Bank’s presence in the capital markets following the completion of its merger with Britannia Building Society in August 2009. Read more
Practitioners of Islamic finance will soon be able to refer to the first-ever standard template for an OTC, Sharia-compliant derivative, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Simon Eedle, MD for Islamic Banking at Credit Agricole CIB, declared at a Reuters-hosted summit that the contract — which will be known as Ta’Hawwut — would be launched “imminently”. Read more
Emerging market investors are weighing increasing their exposure to a tiny market: Bangladesh.
The country’s benchmark Dhaka Stock Exchange General Index has scaled new highs almost every week this year, after a stellar 62 per cent gain in 2009. Read more
Compare and contrast.
From the FT — one maiden (I): Read more
RBC’s constructed a `heat map’ of sovereign risk for OECD economies. The redder the riskier:
Related link:
Handy sovereign risk table – FT Alphaville Read more
Service advisory: Some readers may be having trouble accessing FT Alphaville on Tuesday due to an FT.com registration issue. We apologise for the inconvenience and would like to stress that we are working on the problem.
On FT Alphaville Tuesday morning, Read more
Presenting the euro’s declining value in graphic form:
Live markets commentary from FT.com
You are looking at a page on the National Bank of Greece’s (NBG) website that once, presumably, would have held the prospectus for Titlos Plc — a special-purpose vehicle created in 2009 to securitise a now-infamous swap agreement between the Greek bank and the country’s government.
The prospectus for the deal, arranged by Goldman Sachs, has gone missing from the NBG website. But there’s a good summary of it here, and you can still take a look at its structure here. Read more
When Heritage Oil terminated its $6bn plan to merge with Turkish company Genel Enerji in November we were treated to the following explanation:
Following entry into the LOI [Letter of Intent] with Eni, and in light of the continuing situation in Kurdistan where, in particular, the revenue payment mechanism for oil exports has not yet been established, discussions with Genel have been terminated. Read more
Earlier this month, Hans Wijers, the newish chairman of the Remuneration Committee at Royal Dutch Shell, said the oil company had learnt its lesson on pay.
Recall, the oil company that suffered a humiliating defeat on pay last year, when shareholders baulked at plans to pay executives a discretionary award for performance from 2006 to 2008 in spite of missing targets. Read more
The Greek factor continues to play havoc with the euro, turning “sovereign debt” into two of the dirtiest words around and making itself felt far beyond the shores of the Mediterranean.
Even Australia’s central bank had its eyes on Greece when it shocked markets earlier this month with its decision to hold interest rates at 3.75 per cent. Read more
As expected, Bank of England governor Mervyn King has been forced once again to write a letter to the Treasury explaining why inflation has risen past the critical 3 per cent mark.
As Reuters reported, year-on-year CPI in January came in at 3.5 per cent, a figure in line with Reuters consensus but below some City forecasts which had predicted a rise of as much as 4 per cent. Read more
Wow. That’s the early price action in Barclays after full-year results came in 6 per cent ahead of City expectations. Read more
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Gideon Rachman: Why Mexico is the missing Bric
Countries once classified as mere “emerging markets” are now being re-classified as “rising powers”. Brazil, India and China – together with Russia – have been famously tagged the “Brics”, and are now global political players, writes the FT’s Rachman. Mexico, with more than 112m people, a per capita income more than double that of China and privileged access to the US market, should be in this group. But the drugs problem is blighting its future. Read more
Babcock International, the engineering support services group, unveiled on Monday an audacious £1.14bn offer for VT Group, the support services company which is itself in a takeover battle for a smaller rival. Babcock said it had made an indicative proposal to VT’s board last week worth 633.9p per VT share, a 25% premium to its Friday price – but the approach was rejected by VT. The move comes four years after Babcock fought off a joint approach from VT and BAE Systems. Also on Monday, VT raised its offer for smaller rival Mouchel by 18%, valuing Mouchel’s total equity at roughly £320m. Read more
Finance ministers of the 16-nation eurozone told Greece on Monday night it would have to introduce more spending cuts and revenue-raising measures next month if it appeared unable to slash this year’s budget deficit by as much as promised. Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the ministers’ group, indicated that EU policymakers are ignoring Athens’ plea to focus on a rescue plan to calm market fears of a default by saying Greece should focus on expenditure cuts while also taking steps to increase revenue. Read more
The US Federal Reserve is sitting on significant paper losses on the real estate assets it acquired in the Bear Stearns rescue, with much of the losses coming from debt used to back some of the biggest buy-out deals of the bubble years. The Fed holds them in a vehicle known as Maiden Lane I. The portfolio’s problems could stir the debate over whether the New York Fed, then run by Tim Geithner, now Treasury secretary, struck an appropriate deal for taxpayers in the Bear rescue. Read more
Older entries
1Bernanke weighs in on robot wars; brings Keynes for backup
2Secret liquidity and Scottish independence
3Spain's awful unemployment
4S&P 2,100, by Goldman Sachs
5Pump up, debase
Show more6Buyback to enrich
7Collateral crunch-counting gets sophisticated
8Everlasting credit, the long view
9Apple Operations International, facts (?) du jour
10In which the FTSE puts the crisis behind it
Show fewer