Global Finance

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates less than a quarter of Africans have access to electricity, and those who do pay twice the average retail rate of users in other emerging regions. A report from research firm Frost & Sullivan...

The level of initial public offerings has been at historic lows for nearly a year, but recent large IPOs in Asia and the Middle East have broken the ice, and a backlog of new issues could release a torrent of activity later this year."We expect the 'thaw'...

Companies in the US and Europe are bypassing bank loans and issuing large amounts of debt, which is being readily purchased by investors seeking higher returns than are available on government securities. Investment-grade corporate bond sales are at...

The credit crunch made life more difficult for corporate treasurers in many ways-not least in managing their relationships with their cash management banking partners.Over the past 12 months the European cash management sector has undergone a dizzying...

UNITED STATESChina and Brazil appear to be joining forces in an attempt to unseat the dollar as the de facto global reserve currency. According to Brazil's central bank, the two countries are actively discussing trading with each other using the real...

As product offerings grow and pricing improves, exchange-traded derivatives are increasingly appealing to both corporate and institutional buyers of derivatives contracts.Of the lessons learned by companies during the recent financial meltdown, one of...

Swooning equity markets have added to the troubles facing many corporate pension plans and will only accelerate the move to defined contribution plans.For some time now observers have been warning of a looming pension crisis as lower investment returns,...

Following the Congress (I) party's best federal election showing since 1991, India's stock markets began to price in an acceleration in the pace of economic reforms. The equity indexes reported the best one-day showing in Indian stock market history,...

Kohlberg Kravis Rob- erts, the US-based pri- vate equity firm, received a license to operate from the Dubai International Financial Center. The build- ing in which the firm, whose 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco was chronicled in a book entitled...

PANAMAThe election of a pro-business leader in Panama now makes president-elect Ricardo Martinelli a member of the somewhat lonely club of Latin American right-wing leaden, in which the only other member is Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. However,...

LATIN AMERICALatin American markets are feeling the global financial pinch, and ratings agencies are taking notice, with downgrades soon to follow. Standard & Poor's downgraded El Salvador from BB+ to BB last month, and it seems Mexico is next in...

The shake-out of the past two years has exposed the fragility of many elements of the global financial system, but one thing it has not done that many previous crises have done is flatten the emerging markets. As we find out in our cover story this month...