Editor’s note This is an archived article. For the cover story concerning Sir Allen Stanford please click here. Sir Allen’s new and innovative cricketing enterprise is merely the latest innings in a business empire that spans financial services to upmarket real estate development, hospitality and professional sports. We talked to the Sir Allen about his…
Japan’s big banks, unburdened by heavy subprime losses, and stuck with sputtering growth at home, are once again investing and lending abroad, but investors should not expect a string of blockbuster buyouts. Only a few years removed from a bad-loan crisis that pushed many lenders to the brink of collapse and sparked widespread industry consolidation,…
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Just how bad is the global economic outlook? The lack of a consensus answer to that question is telling. Normally, the financial institutions that steer the world economy show a degree of agreement. But these are uncertain times. The International Monetary Fund said recently that the credit crunch had cost financial firms a stunning $945bn;…
As banks and financial institutions wake up to the growing potential of the online trading market, they continue to look for the technological solutions for gaining reliable, fast access to the sector. However, developing a workable, tried and tested platform for online trading is neither a cheap, straightforward nor timely exercise – and it was…
It isn’t just corporate bombast. It’s a reality many US businesses have already witnessed. For many corporates, transfer pricing is the most important issue any large global business has to face up to during the next five years. Tax authorities – including Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customers (HMRC) – are getting tough with any company…
As a result of EU accession on May 1, 2004, investors in Hungary find themselves in a single market of 493 million consumers with enormous potential for developing new markets and new horizons. At the geographical centre of the region Hungary is destined to become a bridge between present EU members and those countries on…
Is it or isn’t it a bear market? Perhaps that’s not the question, but rather whether a young, new stock exchange in London like PLUS Markets Group can survive the volatility that’s been seen in the stock markets in the past few months. Ask these questions to PLUS’s director of business development Nemone Wynn-Evans, however,…
Custodians have a love/hate relationship with risk. On the one hand, they are wary of using their balance sheets for client financing, a reluctance that has helped investment banks make headway in the administration business. At the same time, custodians are interested in administering highly complex investment portfolios and products, many of which carry a…
1995 represented a major turning point in the financial markets. The futures markets ruled supreme with the tail wagging the dog in the underlying cash markets. Few saw the significance of 1995 though, as it marked the introduction of Windows 95 and Internet Explorer. However, the real change came in 2000 when DSL lines became…
