Alida Smith
Wolf, crunched – “These are historic moments for the world economy”
In today’s FT Martin Wolf explains why he believes this “credit crunch” to be an important turning point for financial markets and the world economy.
1 — It represents a huge blow to the Anglo-Saxon model of transactions-orientated financial capitalism.
SWFs – they come in peace… probably
Sony, Citigroup, UBS, Apple Dubai… spot the odd one out.
Well done, Apple Dubai is in fact fictional. The others, however, all have something in common having received substantial capital injections from the dreaded SWFs. This gang are running around investing in companies throughout the developed world. UBS took $11.5bn from investors in Asia and the middle east,
Financial reporting, the final frontier
An accounting revolution is at hand…. cue the star trek music…
XBRL (extensible business reporting language)
Even it’s acronym sounds cool and space age-y. If you are into accounting, XBRL is probably old news as it has been about for a decade,
Ratings agencies – it’s a dirty job…
“There is no other realistic way to get business done”, says The Aleph Blog in a rare defence of the ratings agencies. The agencies have been under fire from all sides since the credit squeeze began earlier this year.
Central banks aren’t to blame for the dollar dive
According to the IMF’s Cofer data (Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves) the dollar share in Global reserves fell from 71.5 per cent in 2001 to 64.8 per cent in the middle of this year, while the share of the euro rose from 19.2 per cent to 25.6 per cent.
Private equity, Debt and Rock and Roll
“Drat” is the tone deaf cry to be heard from both EMI and Warner as their plans to issue MBSs (Music Backed Securities) have been scuppered by the recent turmoil in the credit markets.
Both companies have been considering issuing billions of dollars of debt by securitising against their publishing catalogues reports Joshua Chaffin in today’s FT.
Deloitte hire Shariah scholar in bid for Muslim money
Deloitte has appointed its very own Shariah scholar, one Mufti Hassan Kaleem, a pupil of Sheikh Mohammed Taqi Usmani reports Jennifer Hughes in the FT.
Alongside his many other appointments, including working for Al Baraka Bank in Pakistan,
Hedge funds finding their feet onshore
“Hedge funds are going mainstream”, so says James Mackintosh in Tuesday’s FT. Some big name hedge funds appear to be escaping the Caribbean tax-friendly sun in order to cash in on the slightly more risk averse investor and the moneyed big name investment banks,
Credit squeeze, continued
The credit markets are not going to see a recovery, despite the cumulative 75 basis point cut in US interest rates: the possibility of improvement is being quashed on several fronts. A leader in today’s FT likens the continued pain inflicted on the credit markets to an aching tooth.
Banking on risk
“The loss of two heads of Wall Street banks has turned 2007 into the industry’s most traumatic year since the 1987 crash,” says a leader column in today’s FT.
Mr Prince’s ability to lead had already been called into question but the final straw was the realisation that Citi would have to take further write-downs of up to $11bn.
Save the dollar campaign
Masked by the “belief in a strong dollar” soundbite, the US Treasury seems to view the weakening of the dollar as an acceptable economic strategy, notes Yale professor Jeffrey Garten in an FT comment piece.